The Blink That Killed the Eye Page 6

  He regained consciousness some time later having lost nearly six pints of blood. The prison doctors did their best to keep him breathing through the transparent tubes of a ventilator, which he did, albeit hoarsely and mechanically. His leg was covered in a mesh of thick white bandages, patches of red blood seeping through sorely. It was then I spoke to him for the first time. He opened his eyes slightly. I was sitting up in bed reading the day’s newspaper recovering from an operation I’d undergone last Thursday. Usually inmates weren’t permitted to share the same ward but all other seclusion units were taken, so they’d put us in together, a warden keeping close watch by the door. His lips were dry. His eyes struggling to prove themselves to his face. He didn’t speak, he couldn’t, so seeing the moment to be opportune I decided to introduce myself.

  ‘Alright mate? You had a bit of rough day? Yep, you did. You’re one lucky bastard you know that? They almost got you right in the pride and jewels! The fella who got it fortnight ago weren’t so lucky. Don’t know if you heard about him.’

  I turned another page then stopped to take a proper look at him, calamitous and mute. He began to blink with a panicked promptness, with the rapidity of a person who was no longer equipped with the ability to speak and shout, but who wanted desperately to express their complete shock and incredulity at their predicament. A hysterical, extensive blink stuck paralysed in the pools of his despair. He’d lost the ability to speak; a thick tube clinging to his cracked lips, crust and tape all around as he lay steeped in the stale uniform of the dead.

  ‘Do you remember their faces? What they looked like?’

  The whites of his eyes were a gone-off sunset, withdrawing themselves into the assailed banks of his memory. The three men. He only would have seen them once, maybe twice. He was down and hungry. He remembered the masticating sound in his head as he chomped through overly salted boiled chicken. He was trying to speak but life was still reorganising itself within. He remembered small insignificant details. White. Clean-shaven. Blue eyes. Tattoo on neck. St George’s cross.

  ‘Don’t stress yourself mate. Relax. These are the kind of questions they’re going to ask you in a few days that’s all.’ I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that even if he knew their names, even if he knew the names of their mothers, wives and daughters, it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference. Prison is prison. The last stop for the forlorn and the wicked. If the men were caught where would they go? Solitary confinement? Maybe get a beating from the guards? This was the end of the line. Robert Shah was a renowned loner. He had nobody to help fight his wars and in prison that’s the most dangerous position for an inmate to be in.

  Despite all the confusion and the excruciating pain the other major concern facing Robert Shah would have been why. Why him? Why was he singled out? As he lay helplessly beneath the ceiling I could almost see his mind race, looking for a plausible explanation to help satisfy all the confusion. He was in prison for murder. He had taken the life of his wife. A defenceless and good woman. The mother of his only child. A woman he’d been introduced to by his parents and encouraged to marry. A marriage he was never fully complicit in. A marriage he was never fully happy in. One he grew to begrudge and could only really express that peculiar repugnance through the evils and cowardice of violence. A violence that for him felt natural and learnt. Could it have been a warranted attack by a group of men targeting prisoners who committed crimes of a seemingly gutless and less masculine nature? A group of men who saw it fit and righteous to attack and murder woman-beaters and pedophiles. Was there a covert vigilante group of staunch feminists perhaps? Surely most of the animals locked within these cages had at some point all turned their fists onto their women? Wasn’t it part of their initiation? A prerequisite for credibility. The sacred axiom of the inner-city drug dealer. The petty thief. The corporate fraudster. The street robber, pervert and pimp. He didn’t know where to begin.

  Robert Shah was a monster, as were all the other men confined to the guilty verdict of their own unforgivable atrocity, but he wasn’t made of typical inmate material. In some ways men like Robert Shah surpass the common sociopathy found in places such as this. He wasn’t hard, fearless or inwardly psychotic insofar as I could tell. I had seen him around before, always alone, always withdrawn and dejected but never appearing to be a threat to anyone. In fact, given a first impression you might be led to believe he was perhaps some type of professional. He had clean chestnut skin with curious, charming features, jet-black hair combed into a sophisticated parting. He looked like the kind of man who might wear glasses while reading a newspaper, drink herbal tea as oppose to regular tea and maybe even have a strict vegan dietary preference. I thought it right to let him rest, his real troubles were only beginning. As I came to the end of my paper I noticed him attempting a slow painful glance down towards his right leg, one which was followed by a hot muffled groan.

  ‘I wouldn’t look down there mate, it’s only going to upset you. You ain’t going anywhere for a while so just try to take it easy.’

  I had said more to him in the space of those few minutes than anyone else had done for the entire duration of his imprisonment. Closing his eyes he fell back into a world where he was free to go and come as he pleased. I myself had learnt the power of the imagination through weeks of solitary confinement. How it quickly becomes the prisoner’s lifeboat. Everyone and everything lives in it; wife, children, parents, friends, favourite bar, most memorable holiday, perverted thought, all exist in this one surreal realm. I also learnt it can just as easily become a prisoner’s worst enemy; a catalyst for rampant anxiety, a supreme tormentor, a stuttering reissue of past incidents. I learnt all this around two years ago when I assisted in the hanging of another inmate. It was a revenge attack for something that happened on the outside. I didn’t ask the questions I should have asked, or the questions a person morally chained to the notions of life, death and punishment might have – a person such as myself. I’m doing life, so from how I saw it the only way I could keep that word and all its connotations from becoming totally extinct was to respond to that harsh reality with death. In retribution I found my purpose again and like most men who receive such fatal sentencing, dealing death becomes a craft, a honed skill, especially when it’s to those who privately sit yearning for it.

  I was already awake when he opened his eyes the following morning. We had slept next to one another throughout the night in relative harmony. His sleep was deep and lengthy. Mine intermittent. It felt strange sleeping next to another man in such helpless circumstances. When you’re locked in a cell with another inmate the dynamics become almost marital. You create your own kind of dance together. On the one hand you have the man who’s more passive, more feminine so to speak, then you have the dominant alpha-male, the aggressor. If those dynamics and roles aren’t established from early on then there’s bound to occur some kind of conflict as is customary in these high-security prisons. Men who were once powerful and feared are involuntarily stripped of their cherished ego and status, however acclaimed it may be, and forced to adopt a second-rate identity, one lesser and seemingly irrelevant. This is what inspires many of the brawls that present themselves in the prison’s open spaces. The intention being to make a spectacle in the hope of gaining a more formidable reputation.

  Getting up to leave I expected one of the wardens to come in and escort me to my cell but nobody came. Now I could see Robert Shah’s full face as I towered above him in the way I would if I was about to place a set of flowers over the top of his coffin. Taking a long hard look it struck me again how he really didn’t fit into the profiling of a prisoner, then again his kind of animal never did – it surpasses the cage and luxury of air. Becoming increasingly angered by his deplorable state I thought people like him should be locked eternally in a hole thousands of feet below ground then fed the hard skin of reptiles which had long ago died, until each individual organ becomes an incarnation of the very carrion they lived to consume. When they become thirsty and ask fo
r water they should only be given cups of acid rain collected from the sky’s most cancerous clouds.

  ‘Who did this to me?’ That was the first thing he said. His hand moving to lift away the thick tube from his mouth. A steady drip diving down into his vein. His voice sounding like a crisp packet being opened by a man with one arm.

  ‘Nobody knows yet. I’ve been in here since Thursday. I only found out what happened to you through the doctor. He’s an old mate. You remember anything?’

  ‘No. I was eating, I felt something in my leg then …’

  ‘What they look like?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The fellas.’

  ‘Oh, like you.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘White blokes. Shaven heads with tattoos.’

  ‘I ain’t trying to sound silly here mate but you’ve just singled out half the prison. You pissed anyone off since you been here?’

  ‘I hardly speak to anyone.’

  ‘Who’s your cellmate?’

  ‘Black fella. From up north. Aaron. That’s all I know about him.’

  ‘Nah, don’t know him. Well just count it lucky you ain’t dead. Keep your wits about you, they might be back to finish the job. Of course, that all depends on who they are and why they did it.’

  I watched the panic move closer into the distressed beatings of his heart. He wasn’t a tough man, anyone could see that. He wasn’t a fighter. He may have been a drunk. A woman beater. A sadist. He may have dabbled in drugs, but he wasn’t brave. He was a coward. A predator. I knew his kind too well. The worst breed of animal. Whatever was happening in Robert Shah’s mind was enough to instil some kind of fear, the kind he would have fed his poor wife for all the years they were together. It felt right to leave him, a perspiring wreck, to taste the acid he would have once driven down her throat and into her belly. Robert Shah was feasting and overdosing on himself, a marvellous thing to see.

  ‘Where you going?’

  ‘Back to my cell. I’ve got a prison sentence to be getting on with. Can’t stay tucked away in here with you, as lovely as it might be.’

  ‘What wing you in?’

  ‘Why, you fancy cuddling up in the evening and watching a movie?’

  The corner of his lip curled up to form half a smile, but within seconds the pain in his thigh reminded him of where he was.

  ‘Why are you here?’ he said

  ‘I had an operation,’ I said.

  ‘No, why are you here?’ he repeated.

  ‘Murder,’ I said.

  I tucked my white T-shirt into my trousers. At this point most sensible inmates know to ask no further questions unless of course a rapport has been established. Robert Shah rustled around on the bed trying to get comfortable, as if he was about to watch a two hour play and wanted to make sure he had good sight-lines.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You know, for a bloke who obviously ain’t too popular around here you ask a lot of questions.’

  ‘Sorry mate. I’m just anxious,’ he crooned.

  ‘Understandable.’

  Zipping away my few toiletries I began walking towards the door. There was no other reason for me to stay and continue conversing with the man I knew to be Robert Shah. Robert Shah the sordid woman-beater. The ruthless murderer. The coward. In a few weeks he’ll be dead. The prison having its own judicatory arrangement for people such as him. His assailants, if not found, would be guaranteed to return to finish what they unsuccessfully began. I was speaking to a marked man. A man lonely and afraid. A man who perhaps from somewhere inside that giddy fear was thinking about his dead wife and the gruesome ordeal he subjected her to. Robert Shah was a ghost. I thought then to grant him the answer to his last question, after all what harm could it have done to speak openly to him, seeing as we both knew he wouldn’t live to see the closing day of the month. I sat back down on the bed.

  ‘My missus had been having an affair for some time. I knew about it but I wasn’t fit enough to sort it out. I’d become a bit of a degenerate if you know what I mean. I had a couple businesses that were doing alright, property, motors that sort of thing, but with that came a sniff habit and erm…a fondness for booze. To be honest I couldn’t blame her. I was a right cunt. Working all hours, getting back at night fucked out my nut. She was happy looking after the kids, little boy and girl, twins, and carried on as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. One evening me and an old mate arranged to meet for a few drinks, he got called to pick up his daughter from school early, she got sick or something. Anyway, I got home sooner than she must have been expecting. I opened the front door and heard screaming coming from up in the bedroom. Not like sex stuff but screaming…you know… in pain. I made it up the stairs thinking one of the kids was in trouble. I boot open the bedroom door and there they both were. The cunt was on top of her with a belt tied around her neck. Pulling it in trying to choke her. She was a fucking mess. Blood all over her face, on her stomach, everywhere. Her legs looked ripped to the point I could see her fucking bones. She was just about breathing. Fuck knows what had happened in there, all I saw when I opened the door was him bashing her over the head with like this poll thing. I couldn’t make out what it was. His other hand choking her with the belt. The way her body looked on the bedroom floor, like a battered heap of shit, her legs wide apart, squirming, trying to breathe. So I…grabbed the back of his head. Smacked him once, twice, maybe a few more times. He went down. She was trying to undo the belt. I ran over to the side of the bed to get my blade.’ He started to cough, first lightly then more ferociously, his chest roaring beneath the sheets. I reached over to where the water jug was, filling up his glass to bring it up to his lips. He sipped. The cough eased. A clear lace of water streamed from out his left eye, down the side of his head and over his ear. I waited with the water-jug in my hand for his breathing to recalibrate itself.

  ‘Cheers mate.’ Lumps of phlegm drumming against his vocal chords.

  ‘What you do to him?’ he asked with slight apprehension.

  Abruptly I put the water-jug back on the unit. ‘Hacked half his fucking head off. I would have finished if she hadn’t tried to stop me. I don’t know how far I got. He was wailing like a pig, blood squirting everywhere. I couldn’t kill him enough. She jumped on my back. Punching, scratching saying I’d killed him. I threw her off. She whacked her head on the edge of the bed’s frame. Steel. Died just like that. They gave me a life sentence for him, manslaughter for her. Either way, I ain’t going anywhere for a while … I loved her, I really fucking did. She shouldn’t have died like that, she shouldn’t have died like that, and I shouldn’t have been the fuck up I was.’

  If he was able to reach out maybe he would have put an arm on my shoulder or say he understood but he didn’t, instead Robert Shah lay steadily breathing with his mouth agape. Despite his nebulous gaze something inside of me suspected I was retelling a drama he had at some point already seen or maybe even experienced himself. Those who in their lives have been exposed to certain unimaginable afflictions, to the point where they become numb and impervious to any further distresses, carry within them an oddity which always manages to make itself apparent when things of this nature are brought up. For Robert Shah there was nothing upsetting about my crime or the savagery behind my intent. He internalised my life’s history with acceptance, like a solid aspirin being dropped into a glass of cold water, allowing it to dissolve into a clear amorphous calm.

  I made another attempt to leave and let him brood on the remaining few days he had left as Robert Shah. Turning my back I felt a strange sense of violation come over me. Something conniving and intrusive had just happened with the same invisible magic a pick-pocket might deploy on the city’s crowds. Robert Shah had managed to subtly extract the most harrowing story of my life without reciprocating anything in return; no sympathetic token, not even a mere reconciliation. No understanding, no infuriation. He heard my story yet I still knew nothing of his. Only his name and the fickl
e rumours which circulated the prison on his arrival.