Written on: Wednesday 25th February 2009

Spring arrives in Craiginches, bringing with it birdsong and sunshine. And violence too of course, that age-old harbinger of seasons changed as fists are raised to commemorate the lengthening of days and strengthening of golden rays. Out in the fields, March hares box, snowdrops blossom and lambs frolic. Inside the prison walls, however, springtime is observed in time-honoured tradition, with the spilling of sacrificial blood.
The planet is a single organism with a delicately linked ecosystem in which every action has a knock-on effect, causing seemingly isolated incidents to invoke unforeseen chain reactions, the implications of which can be felt on the other side of the world. The scientist James Lovelock named this Gaia: ‘An ecological hypothesis proposing that the biosphere and the physical components of the Earth (atmosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere) are biogeochemical conditions in a preferred homeostasis.’ In the Pacific, a butterfly flaps its wings, causing a current of air that slowly grows to become a breeze, then a gale and then a fully-fledged hurricane. As Pacific weather systems change, this in turn causes an area of low pressure to spread across the Atlantic, sending clouds scurrying to the south. While a storm rages on the other side of the world, the low pressure reaches Europe, bringing with it more clement conditions. In Scotland, rain and snow is finally dispersed, making way for longer, brighter days. As sunshine increases, so do temperatures and tempers too. Every time the mercury rises by another degree, so too does the disquiet of the men trapped inside Craiginches. Its state-of-the-art air conditioning system (a few foam blocks plugged into gaping holes in the windows) is no match for the warm weather, and before long, warm has begat hot which in turn has boiled over until some poor cunt’s been smashed in the coupon, all because a butterfly in Hawaii had the temerity to emit one flutter too many.
Ostensibly, the fight was over a game of pool, but it could have been any one of 100 insignificant events that acted as the catalyst. Once sparked, it duly exploded in the faces of those involved and from its point of origin exsanguinated over the entire hall. It started at the pool table, discolouring the green baize as spattered droplets rained down upon it. From there, it spilt onto the protagonists’ clothes and then onto the floor, leaving a crimson trail that ran the length of A-Hall. The dispute started in the black quarter, the end of A-Hall that was long since appropriated by the Yardies and designated their unofficial headquarters, the place to hang out and trade tales of guns, bitches and food [drugs] in high-speed patois. The only requirements for admission onto their turf are a sufficient amount of pigmentation and the ability to exchange clenched fist greetings with shouts of ‘Bumber clart!’ and ‘A’ight blood, wag wan?’ Wag wan? It was going fine actually, or at least it was until all the talk of blood clots gave way to the real thing. Black-on-black violence is generally unheard of in the jail; the Yardies have no desire to engage in internecine conflict, for there are more than enough white guys willing to do the honours. On this occasion, however, even the solidarity of the Jamaican diaspora was not strong enough to resist the power of Gaia.
One of the Yardies, EZ, had developed a habit of interrupting the pool playing of his fellow bloods by stealing the balls and running off upstairs, refusing to return them until they reluctantly abandoned their game and let him play. If anyone – white, black or yellow – had tried to do this at the other table in the hall, they would instantly have been on the wrong end of a pool cue. Because the Yardies club together for solidarity however, EZ’s spirited actions were tolerated. Besides, he is only 20, still technically a Young Offender; a young blood, not that he would have been seen associating with the skinny white boys who make up the rest of the jail’s YO contingent. After weeks of hijacking pool games, to the chagrin of the players, EZ finally tried his luck once too many and was taught a lesson he wouldn’t forget in a hurry. Having gone through his usual ball-stealing routine, much to the annoyance of his fellow blood, Mach, EZ decided to introduce a new trick and began dropping the pool balls onto Mach’s toes. Given that Mach was only wearing flip-flops at the time, this was understandably painful. Not as painful, however, as the tit that was about to follow his tat. Eventually tiring of having his toes used for target practice, Mach grabbed hold of EZ’s shirt and the two Yardies squared up to one another. Before their startled blood brothers lounging around the table could pull them apart, Mach lashed out and landed a direct hit on his fellow countryman. Boom! EZ’s nose busted open, exploding in a shower of blood. It rained down around him, spattering the pool table and all those in attendance with wanton disregard for rank or reputation. By the time the screws had rushed to the scene (foregoing the gang salutes in their haste to enter the black quarter), it was all over bar the shouting. All they could do was lead the disconsolate EZ away, his nose in bits, blood pishing down his face and drip-dripping all over the polished linoleum. As the cons were swiftly checked up, Mach was carted off to the digger, EZ to the doctor and the jail’s designated blood cleaner to the scene of the crime. ‘That’ll spill over onto the street’ warned Huxley, my cellmate and senior member of the black quarter. ‘EZ’s a gun man, he might seem like a boisterous YO in here, but out in the real world he’s deadly. This one ain’t over.’ It may not have been over, but our rec time certainly was. From behind our door, we watched as the crimson trail was painstakingly wiped away. Such is the frequency of scarlet spillages in the jail, each hall has a designated inmate who has taken the course, received the certificate and been given the go-ahead to don the blue latex gloves and mop up his colleagues’ hep-ridden lifeblood. It’s a shit job, but it pays handsomely by jail standards; £4 per call-out, the equivalent of two days’ wages. No sooner had the Wet Floor cones been put away however when the blood cleaner was summoned yet again to work his magic.
At lunchtime today, the morning after the carnage of the nite before, there was no sign of EZ. By all accounts his nose was looking fat, even by black standards. His job, serving lunch at the hotplate, had been taken by another. In EZ’s absence, however, the hotplate was still a source of hot gossip and hot-headed action. To prevent the entire hall from descending upon the hotplate at once and causing chaos, the screws unlock a few doors at a time, first one side of the bottom flat, then the opposite, then, once they’re safely fed and back behind their doors, they move onto the second and third flats. Situated in the centre of A-Hall, on the bottom flat, my cell is directly beside the hotplate. While being on the bottom floor has its disadvantages (it is the noisiest part of the jail), it does mean I get served first at mealtimes. After queuing up for lunch (a polystyrene salad box consisting of half a tomato, some cucumber slices, coleslaw, lettuce and a slice of inscrutable luncheon meat), I made the short walk back to my pad and was swiftly locked up with my co-pilot. Just as I had finished demolishing my gourmet grub, there was an almighty bang as something – or rather someone – cannoned against the cell door. Huxley and I rushed over and peered through the gaps in the door, where we were treated to a smorgasbord of sights and sounds that instantly made us forget about the meal we had just eaten. Who needs limp lettuce when your appetite has been whetted by a healthy dose of ultra-violence? The first thing to assail our senses was sound; the sound of a body hitting the floor via our cell door swiftly followed by the protagonist’s shouts of ‘He tried to slash me, boss! He tried to fucking slash me!’ Outside, just inches away from my eyeballs, it was chaos; plates, food, cons, screws and blood scattered everywhere. It wouldn’t take Grissam to solve this crime scene. As they queued for lunch, one of the cons had indeed threatened to slash someone. The would-be-slasher had his very own slash mark running the length of his face, proof – if it were needed – that he’d seen a few blades in his time. The subject of his threat was Scotty, a burly Cockney geezer with hands like wrecking balls. Faced with such sharpened hostility, Scotty sensibly decided to act first and put his god-given weapons of mass destruction to good use. In one lightning-fast blow, he smashed into the scarred coupon, knocking it and the body attached to it floorwards. The punched reverberated around the hall, and could even be heard by the cons behind their doors on the top floor. The recipient of the percussive punch was out cold, his jaw broken and blood, once again, spattered over the A-Hall linoleum. The geezer hadn’t even had to deploy a swift one-two to ground his opponent; just as with EZ, the one was all it took. Although both fights were settled with a single punch, it was unanimously agreed that Scotty had landed the killer blow. After hitting the deck in a heap of scattered plates, splattered blood and splatted food, the victim lay there for a few seconds, out cold. (‘He looked like he’d been hit by a shovel’ noted one con later. ‘Sparkled’ was how Scotty went on to proudly describe it.)
As one of the screws firmly marched the irate Englishman back to his cell, the victim steadied himself and tried to get to his feet. Still in a daze, he stumbled and fell headfirst into the hot plate. It was a final flourish that would have done any spasticated ballerina proud. Taking pity on the prone prisoner, two screws hauled him up and off to hospital. The shout to ‘Check up!’ went out and the cons were duly checked up while the blood cleaner returned once again to perform his duties. I watched through the crack in the door as, on bent knee, the cleaner painstakingly mopped up the blood from the floor, the adjacent table and the hotplate. Had the blood splashed any higher, the rack of pepperoni pizzas that were waiting to be served up would have been turned into black puddings.
After lunch, Scotty was led off to the digger to spend a few days in solitary confinement, but within shouting distance of his temporary neighbour, Mach. Although the screws are officially obliged to take jaw and nose-breaking incidents seriously, unofficially they were swift to congratulate Scotty for disposing of an inmate that no one in the jail cared for. One screw shook the victor’s hand. Another greeted him ‘Scotty! Or should we call you Rocky?’ Even the Reliance turnkeys who run the Sheriff Court holding cells, two miles away from Craiginches, were talking about That Punch the next day. When an inmate falls in the forest that is A-Hall, everyone hears them make a sound.
With ill fortune’s penchant for tripartite pacts, the jail waits with bated breath to see who will be next to hit the floor in a shower of blood. All it takes is the wrong word said at the wrong time, or a flutter too many on the other side of the world. That is the power of Gaia.