10 Days of Prison Clichés
By Hannah Racecar
I remember waking up to jingling keys and hearing my door unlock, these jingling keys were the theme tune to the next 10 days. At this point I had no idea I would be leaving this place anytime soon, I genuinely thought I would be stuck here for the next 9 months, I received 18 months in total but my Barrister reassured me I would only be doing half of this time, so I held on to that and kept telling myself that this would fly by. The sound of jingling keys has always brought me back to this place, the same as jingling bells make me think of Christmas but not with the same warm fuzzy feeling.
I'm awake sitting in my cell, alone, puffy eyes, I smell toast and hear rumblings in the wing and over a loud speaker people being called to get their medication. I am so reluctant to leave this room but I am hungry and I need to work out what the fuck I have gotten myself into. I open my door and just stand there on the landing looking around. This prison is exactly what prison looks like on TV, everything is a weird greeny-blue colour, metal, cold and harsh looking, one of the girls who arrived with me last night comes over and we head down the stairs together to see how much of a freak show there is and surprisingly, everyone seems a bit...normal.
As the days go on, I learn this isn't the case and I obsess about some characters. The only way I can process what is going on around me is to imagine what tv/film it reminds me of and overall, I see this whole experience as ‘The Office’. Each person I meet does not necessarily stand out or come across as particularly interesting but after a while you notice certain traits or behaviours which make them fascinating and great viewing material.
The first few days blur into one, most of the time I was in my cell. You have breakfast, then get locked up, you have lunch then get locked up you have dinner then get locked up again until the next morning. In those 10 days I only got to go outside twice and each of those times I had my gym clothes on ready to go and I ran around in circles until I was told to go back inside again. I think we all know now how important it is to be outside and have fresh air and to exercise for our mental health, I would have lost the plot if I had stayed there, there was no compulsory yard time. Basically, if there was guard available to take you out then they would and if there wasn’t then it was tough fucking luck. I was not in there long enough to be assigned a job so spent 22 hours alone, any opportunity I had to get out I would take it, I decided to be a Buddhist to get out for 2 hours meditation and to go to Sunday Morning Worship! Literally all I had to look forward to.
Sunday Morning worship did not go down how I expected it to, I don’t know why I thought I would like it. I went to two Catholic schools and have a Muslim dad, I had enough of religion and yet I was here surrounded by people who really believed God was going to get them through this shit. The desperation in these people was hard to deal with and their faith deluded me but also gave me a huge sense of FOMO. I have always held on to this slight envy of people who have faith.
Finally, the vibe I wanted, Hymns!! No matter who you are, a good hymn is a good hymn and if you have an organ and some clapping then you are half way to reaching that feeling when the bass comes in at a rave which is where I would be now if I wasn't here. We are singing, we are clapping, people have their eyes closed and it is a vibe, then I hear some cunt clapping off beat and it ruins everything, I can't focus on anything else, I spot who it is and she looks vacant and definitely someone who would kick the shit out of me so I don’t look at her again and shut the fuck up. - (Rule No.1) -
I never got to go to the 2 hours Meditation, I was given an itinerary of people and places I had to visit, the library, gym, case worker. The meeting with the case worker was the best day ever! We had a chat about why I was there, I think she realised I was not a hardened criminal and being here would destroy my soul. She took some notes and the next day I get a letter under my door telling me I am getting decategorised. I had no idea what this meant but everyone else did, or so they thought.
The main idea was that I would get to leave this place, which was a high security, category A, the cliché of all movies and music videos. I was thrilled with this! No one told me anything else. It was not until I spoke to another prisoner who told me I had to request to leave on ‘the pod’ which is basically an APP that rules your life, you choose everything from your weekly menu, canteen, education courses, job application and which prison you could move to. I was told about a place called ESP, it was an open prison, you were not locked in, it was on a farm, and you can go home on the weekends!! SIGN ME THE FUCK UP! I requested this location as my one and only option, it was in Maidstone, not too far from my Mum and a few days later got my transfer date.
The transfer to the open prison couldn’t come any sooner, I was losing my mind! The first 3 days I had my own cell which was ideal. One morning some prick of an officer comes in to my cell and asks me if I am violent with no context to why he is asking me, I answer as if I was offended ‘NO!’ then he walks off all happy. The next bit of news is devastating... another note under my door, I am being moved to a different cell and I have a cellmate. Apparently if you are violent, you have your own cell so I ended up being punished for being a decent person.
Dread overwhelmed me, I have met most of these people and can safely say I do not want to share a tiny room with any of them. I packed up my stuff and moved there quickly so I could claim the bottom bunk. I learnt this from OITNB. The next 7 days I did not sleep at night and the only thing that kept me from screaming was that transfer date.
As it turned out, I was lucky enough to have the sweetest roommate from hell. Let's call her Sophia. She was Columbian and obviously in for smuggling cocaine. She was sweet, she had a child, she never stopped worrying, she loved Jesus and the woman snored like a wild boar! The most testing time of my life! No sleep will drive anyone crazy and this sent me to a dark place. One night in a moment of despair I muttered ‘I am going to kill you’. Obviously, I was figuratively speaking and just thinking out loud but apparently you can't just throw around expressions like this in prison. Sophia heard my threat and for a whole night and half a day thought I was actually going to kill her! I approached her noticing her acting sheepish and avoiding me at all costs, when she told me I felt terrible...but also found this hilarious.
The lack of sleep during the night meant I would nap during the day when I could. Sometimes Sophia would get up and out as soon as the cell door was unlocked, I think this was because she needed to do a poo and didn’t want to do it in our cell. This meant I had around 45 minutes to sleep and then get breakfast. Falling asleep for these short periods meant I was in a very light and lucid sleep. One day, my brain played a great trick on me. I dreamt that over the loud speaker one of the guards said ‘Attention please! Would the real Slim Shady please stand up?!’ I thought I was still awake and this actually happened, I thought the guards were having a laugh. I was 100% sure of this and I spoke about it at breakfast...OUT LOUD! No one knew what I was on about. I even approached a guard and asked if it had happened as I was that certain. I received a very worrying look and was told to “Go away.”
I started to become more relaxed with everyone in the wing, my ally was a lovely woman called Gwen. She was in her 60’s and was in for stealing out of the till at work. (prison is full of these dangerous criminals) She was funny and we joked about the other characters and how coincidentally, they were all innocent.
My favourite person in the whole place was in for stealing from Primark!!! She got 3 weeks as she didn’t turn up to a probation meeting so was sent to prison! Let's call her Saphire. She was quite overweight, had really chubby cheeks, and was east Asian looking. Saphire would never shut up about Coca-Cola and giving blow jobs! She loved them both equally and was stressed as she couldn’t get a can of her delicious drink in her weekly canteen order. I have never heard anyone as dramatic as this over this type of coke! I was going to buy her one but I needed my essentials more. The first time we spoke she told me “I am known for giving blow jobs in my area”. I had so many questions!
Cock sucking?
She was never paid, she did it for no other reason than because she loved doing it. She had a certain bravado and wanted to suck off one of the guards and would go on about that too. I do think she was quite vulnerable; she was young and I think these guys definitely were taking advantage of her but any mention of this would be brushed off. In the end I suggested she may as well be getting paid for it, or at least get a free Coke – Not my wisest piece of advice.
Another woman on my wing was very elderly, she was in a wheelchair and looked like she was on her death bed. Each morning, she was in her chair waiting to be taken to get her medication, the guards always ignored her so I started taking her, we never really talked and I would leave her by the nurse and head back. I would get funny looks from the other prisoners as to why I was doing this and I can only assume that she did something really terrible. There was another lady who was also really sick in there. They were both avoided like the plague. In prison there are a few common rules, don’t fuck with old people or kids and worse than this... don’t be a snitch.
These 10 days passed slowly. I was exhausted. I was tired of 2nd guessing everyone's motives and worrying about what people thought of mine. I looked grey and I was alone most of the time. I had the worst period as I was not allowed my contraceptive pill which I had been on for the past 12 years. There was not much I could do about this, most people on my wing were withdrawing from prescription meds for pain, depression or other conditions, I was bottom of the list for seeing a DR.
I spent my time reading, writing, napping and doing sit ups. I thought the best use of my time here would be to get abs and write a diary of this weird experience. I had a TV in my room but the signal was rubbish, I watched a bit of loose women and the news but ended up burying myself in the book my mum gave me ‘The Elephant Whisperer’. This escape was beautiful, I laughed, I cried and couldn’t put it down. The story centres around a herd of rogue elephants that attacked everyone and broke out of anywhere that tried to contain them and were close to being put down. I am sure most of the women in here could relate to these elephants, abused, scared and willing to do anything to protect themselves and their family. I left this book with Sophia to help her with her English and asked her to pass this book on. I like to think this book is still in the prison helping to provide a much-needed escape to another elephant.