Written on: Tuesday 27th January

‘Fit did ya go to the Evening Express for the last time you was in?’
The voice whined through a crack in the door, flooding my cell with indignation and ire, while an eyeball eyeballed me through the peephole, demanding that I account for my previous sins. From the restricted view afforded me, I couldn’t put a face to the pinned pupil, but I didn’t doubt that it was toothless, scarred and emaciated.
‘I didn’t,’ I replied to the disgruntled stranger. ‘It was the Press & Journal.’ My accuser, who could have been any one of a hundred identikit junkies, dwelt on this for a moment.
‘Fit did ya dae ‘at for, saying a’ the cons wis junkies?’ continued the junkie, who clearly had a bone to chew – or rather gum – on.
‘Because most of them are,’ I replied truthfully. At present, two thirds of the inmates in Craiginches are on methadone. That means two thirds of them are junkies. I was never any good at fractions, but by my reckoning, two thirds could safely be classified as most of the sum total.
‘Yer a fucking bam,’ grunted the junkie, unimpressed with my reasoning, and sloped off in search of some foil with which to chase his pain away.
The next day at rec, another junkie approached me in the hall. (Or perhaps it was the same one, who knows?) ‘Here – you’re the boy that wrote that stuff aboot the custard creams!’ he shouted. (The headline in the News of The World article that had published my weblog was ‘Stabbed In The Neck Three Times…Over A Packet Of Custard Creams’.)
‘Yeah. And?’ I shrugged insolently.
‘I’m gonna fucking do you,’ came the swift reply.
Retribution and Revenge? Ah, do come in, I’ve been expecting you. To be honest, I’d been anticipating those two rearing their ugly heads for some time. Ever since The Boy Who Wrote That Jail Weblog got the jail again, it was only a matter of time before the inhabitants of said jail confronted him about his previous thought crimes. Why anyone in Craigie should give so much weight to my thoughts on prison life as opposed to those of my fellow cons baffled me. Still, it was strangely flattering to learn that they had been hanging on my every poisonous word. I had thought that three years of hard drugs and hard jail living would have blunted their memories (and that’s just the screws I’m talking about), but I was clearly wrong. Clearly, Custardgate (as the News Of The World article shall henceforth be dubbed) was still A Big Fucking Deal. The way things were going, I was in serious danger of being stabbed in the neck three times over a blog about being stabbed in the neck three times. It was enough to make anyone want to reach for the custard creams and indulge in some comfort munching.
‘Fuck it,’ I shrugged to myself. If I’d intended to spend my whole life looking over my shoulder, I’d have asked the Good Lord to reincarnate me as an owl. As I was thinking these resolute thoughts, another con approached and proceeded to quiz me about Custardgate. He wanted to know how much I’d gotten for selling my story. I explained to him that I hadn’t sought any money for it. ‘Fuck sake, ya coulda got two grand for that!’ he exclaimed, mentally trying to work out how many tenner bags that would buy.
I could understand a few of the cons being pissed off if it was their personal indiscretions that had been daubed across the The Press & Journal and News Of The World. What I couldn’t quite comprehend was their anger at my portrayal of the prison in general. It wasn’t as if I’d dissed their own homes and families, although to many, Craigie was a home from home and its inhabitants were their family. All I’d done was tell it like it was. What were they expecting, a narrative in which Craiginches was like something out of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, with chocolate rivers and glass elevators whisking the cons o’er the water to court every morning? Junkies, dressed like Oompa-Loompas, dancing arm-in-arm down the hall to collect their meth?
And it wasn’t just the cons who were queuing up to have words with me about my words. The screws were also eager to find out if The Trash Whore Diaries would be making a reappearance, no doubt anxious to see what dirt I would be dishing on them and what jail scams I would uncover. Sadly both groups are out of luck. Do they really think I’d be stupid enough to start my jail blogs again, with the entire prison population looking over my shoulder? Actually, yes, I am that stupid. Only this time round, I’ll be publishing my blogs in time delay, using the same technique they employ to bleep out the swearing when the Oscars are screened live. I’m writing these words in January 2009 but if it’s still January when you’re reading them, it’s more likely to be 2010. Hopefully by then my neck will be sufficiently far from jail to avoid being breached thrice over on account of a story about a story about a packet of custard creams.
Although it feels like the entire jail intake is out to get me over perceived slights to their fine, upstanding reputation, thankfully I still have one ace to call upon at the turn. In the Sheriff Court holding cells on Monday, one of the cons from B-Hall started mouthing off about me being ‘a bam’, quite possibly on account of a weblog I once wrote about…yeah, you get the picture. Although I wasn’t there to hear his denigrations, unfortunately for him, someone much scarier was; an acquaintance of mine whose reputation precedes him in jails the length of the country. Upon overhearing the mouthy con’s diatribe, my boy swiftly covered the CCTV camera with his left hand and hooked the complainer with his right. ‘Sorry,’ sputtered the busted coupon, ‘I didnae ken you knew Kai.’ Sometimes it’s good to have high friends in low places like these.