Bangkok Hard Time (10 page)

A guard came over to the bars demanding to know what was going on. One of the permanent resident elders in the cell who seemed to be the assigned room captain of sorts directed his attention to the unconscious, bleeding inmate on the floor. Cursing, the guard left, but returned quickly with another guard and ordered the prisoners nearest the injured inmate to drag the now semiconscious man over to him.

After warning the others back, he reached through the bars, grabbed a bloody hank of hair, and pulled the injured man’s head up to the bars while the other guard produced an aerosol can. He sprayed the guy’s split-open head with some powdery purple wound dressing. He then asked the name of the problematic prisoner, received it and left. Just then, another new guy started moaning loudly, which prompted one of the elder prisoners to walk down the aisle and swiftly kick him into silence.

I lay there contemplating my fate. The practical me was worrying whether or not I would ever see my money again, while the junkie me was apprehensive about the outcome of the examination of my toiletries bag. Before sleep came, I was missing being in the police station jail. In a Thai prison, wearing chains wrapped around a locked bar is pretty much a pathetic place to find yourself. At least I was not sick … yet.

I slept for a little bit between bouts of encounters with the infamous Thai bedbug, a tick-sized and -shaped critter that bites and runs. Thais call them “blood bugs” which is a much more appropriate name. Dawn finally arrived about the same time as my first strong withdrawal twinges hit. It was what the Vietnam vets called a “jones”. When the cells were opened and the rods holding the chains in place were unlocked, I followed the other forlorn inmates downstairs.

That morning’s prison breakfast looked almost like the dinner of the previous evening – with a slight variation. Most of the other prisoners were eating it with minimal enthusiasm.

All the prisoners partaking of the government-provided rations had first loudly repeated a three-line pledge before eating. The recitation leader said the first line, “I eat this food just to survive”, and the prisoners repeated it. When I heard that, a revelation instantly flashed for me. So this was the meaning of that inside joke between Lek and his wife. He had said the same thing to her when she served him her poor cooking.

The next line was “I accept the consequences of my own karma.” This was followed by the final line in the pre-meal mantra: “I will comply with and respect the law of the land.”

Meanwhile, about a half dozen charcoal-fired woks were smoking away as other prisoners were preparing food that the elders with money had organized and paid to be brought from the outside markets. I was shocked to see that the prisoners at the woks had knives and meat cleavers which they were using to prepare the meals.

At one end of the ground floor, in front of a guard’s desk, stood the problem prisoner from the previous night. He was speaking so quickly that I could not understand what appeared to be protestations. But whatever he was saying, it did not prevent the guard from beating him across the upper thighs with a long rattan pole until he collapsed.

An English-speaking prisoner then came over and told me to come with him to see the same guard. He said I was to go to the clinic soon and should wait by his desk. I squatted down just as the intercom screeched to life with the announcement that it was eight o’clock. Everyone stood at attention as the Thai National Anthem was played.

The clinic building across the lane looked exactly like the one I had just left. We were escorted to the open-air reception area on the ground level together with the bloodied problem prisoner of the previous night. Other prisoners-cum-clinic helpers were tending to the incoming patients. Eventually, I was taken to a semi-enclosed office where an older man in white shirt and tie introduced himself in fairly good English as Dr John. He had the contents of my bag spread on the desk top.

Included in the spread were a few plastic ziplock bags containing the opened items. One held a large slit open tube of toothpaste, another a larger dissected tube of shaving gel, while another contained a broken stick deodorant. There also a small bottle of aspirin, a bottle of vitamins, six Valiums in a tiny bag, and my assortment of eye drops. More, my little bottle of heroin-laced nose spray was lying there, calling to me temptingly. Most important, the leather bag itself looked undamaged.

The doctor looked at my eye saying it was conjunctivitis. I told him that I had been treating it with this collection of eye drops which were obtained from a Thai pharmacy and asked if I could use some now. With his permission, I selected two of the tiny bottles and put some in either eye. Thanking him with a feigned sigh of relief, I returned them to the desk top and in the same motion, I grabbed my heroin-laced nose spray, asking to use it as well. Permission was granted even as I was snorting it. Then the bottle was reluctantly placed back on his desk without comment.

I tried hard not to let my deportment change, as he told me that I surely could not have the bottle of aspirin or the Valium and that the Vice Warden would decide on everything else. He dismissed me, but not before handing over two aspirins and one Valium to be taken right there. After swallowing the tablets, I was directed to return to Building #2 by myself, a five-meter walk across the lane. Feeling better by the moment made me realize just how sick I had been. Back in the compound, most of the prisoners, including the new ones, were working, making various types of Buddhist funereal offerings.

The only other new detainee who was not working, my fellow chain-wearing prisoner, walked over and spoke to me for the first time in broken but passable English.

“My name is Sompong,” he announced.

Being held on a major ganja distribution case, this was his third tour of this Thai prison. In court, he had won his first two cases after spending two years each time awaiting his final acquittal on each charge.

“This time I lose for sure,” he lamented.

After inquiring about my case, he said that I should just plead guilty and ask for a pardon from The King. This was not the first time I had heard of the Royal Prerogative, which is one of the constitutionally granted powers of the Thai Monarchy. His Majesty can release anyone from prison at any time. I remembered Lek telling me about being released under a general amnesty in honor of The Kings Birthday, though this was the first time I had heard of special individual pardons.

While I was trying to digest this new information, music started up. A very mediocre live rock band was playing in another building down the lane. I had not yet learned that the Thai loanword for
guard
is
commodore,
so when I asked Sompong who was making the noise and was told that it was “the Commodores”, I started to question my or his grasp on reality. Could this possibly be that American funk-soul group? I was thinking how much they had fallen off since “Three Times A Lady”.

The confusion was further compounded when, mixing Thai with English, he told me “After, you go look your friend you
dan see”
meaning “Later, you will meet your fellow foreigners in Building #4.” However, at the time I took it to mean that I was going to see my unnamed friend dancing.

My mind was slipping away again.. I was starting to question anything that this guy was telling me now. I knew that the band did not sound like “The Commodores”, and I was pretty sure that none of my friends were there dancing. Actually they were commodores – guards – that played together at lunchtime for their (obviously much needed) band practice. Later that day, Sompong and I were moved to Building #4 (
dan see
) where all of the approximately thirty foreign detainees, along with the major Thai drug case remand prisoners, were being held.

This building’s layout was almost exactly like the previous one. Just inside the gate, to the left at ground level, was the small prison store. Sompong suggested that I should check to see if my money was on my account yet, while he simply walked in and started ordering stuff as if sure his money was already there. Any items that he wanted which were not in stock were added to a growing list to be purchased for him outside and delivered the next day. I wished later that I had paid attention to what he had ordered, because I would need the same stuff.

While standing in line to check my account status, I met another American prisoner. His name was Brad, and he was from San Francisco. He said that he doubted my money would be on my account yet, and that I was welcome to eat dinner with his group. He said most of the inmates in this building prepared and cooked their own food. Not yet knowing whether I had money to buy anything, I gladly accepted. I was not anxious to eat the government-provided food again just for the sake of survival.

When the prison store bookkeeper found that I indeed had money credited to my name, it removed some of my fears about the disposition of the cash surrendered to the #2 Vice Warden. Not wanting to find myself in the position of being beholden to any other prisoner, I bought two cartons of cigarettes so I could pay my way as I went along.

Dinner was quite good, even though I was starting to feel dope sick again. The members of Brad’s food group were all Thai inmates who spoke English well enough that Brad did not have to use his poor Thai language skills when speaking with them. But he used Thai anyway. I continued to only speak English whenever I spoke at all. Brad liked to talk about his case and was happy to have someone listen to him. I ate and politely listened.

The tall, nice-looking, redheaded California junkie was fighting his case and constantly trying to convince others that his lame defense made sense. Brad had been there almost a year on charges of possession of 175 grams of heroin. He had thrown it out of his 6
^th
floor apartment window when the Thai cops came to his door. The bag burst upon landing on the hood of an occupied police car parked below. His Thai wife was being held on the other side of the moat at the women’s prison as an accessory.

A former cult member, of the Moonie persuasion, Brad had been in charge of the cult’s California street-corner rose-selling scam and had absconded with a female cult member along with all the proceeds from the rose sales. He had used the stolen money to run away to Thailand.

His girlfriend later returned to the San Francisco Moonie flock while Brad stayed behind, eventually becoming a heroin addict like his new Thai wife. Now incarcerated here in Bangkok, he was wasting the last of his purloined Moonie rose money on a Thai lawyer who had promised him that his case was winnable. Brad and his wife would both lose their cases a few months later and get life sentences.

When he had made the mistake of asking me what I honestly thought of his case, my suggestion that he should just cop a
mea culpa
plea which might allow his wife to go free was not well received. It didn’t help any that each of our Thai dinner companions agreed with me. I thanked them all for the fine meal, leaving behind a couple packs of cigarettes.

That evening, I was directed up the stairs into a cell exactly like the previous night’s accommodation except that it was not as crowded and my chains were not to be wrapped around the bar at the foot of the sleeping platform. Fortunately, I was at the end of the cell, away from the toilet enclosure. Sompong was on the platform across the aisle from me. He nodded, and I could not help but notice that he somehow already acquired a straw mat, a pillow and a mattress.

I, on the other hand, had nothing. I had ripped the arms off my long-sleeve knit shirt, using the cloth to cushion the shackles that were starting to chafe my ankles. Feeling sorry for myself as usual, worried about the disposition of my money, and agonizing over the ultimate outcome of my leather bag in addition to starting to feel sick had me in a very irritable, crappy mood.

After locking the cell, a guard made the prisoners count themselves individually. When it came to my turn to say my number, the Thai prisoner next to me counted out on my behalf. This was followed by the room captain setting about to gather the names of the new prisoners. A few Thais, Sompong included, volunteered their information. The room captain sent an English-speaking prisoner down the walkway to ask my name. Standing over me where I sat, he barked down at me like the first prisoner helper that I had met upon my intake. “Hey you, name you?” he demanded. As I was already in a bad mood, this really pushed my buttons.

Throughout my life, it often seemed as if my mouth was too frequently overloading my ass. I really cannot remember my unwise rude response, but obviously it was the wrong thing to say. He cursed and slapped me hard. Moments later, I awoke, still sitting upright and cross-legged, still wearing chains, and now contemplating my next clever option.

Keeping my hands to myself, I smiled and noticed that all the older Thai prisoners in the immediate area were now standing and verbally berating my antagonist, sending him slinking back to his end of the cell, by the toilet. This was the correct opportunity. Speaking in Thai for the first time since arriving at the office intake gate, I apologized to those around me for being rude and told the room captain my name, even spelling it for him in Thai. It was the only thing I could spell in Thai, but it achieved the desired reaction.

Everyone who had been standing before now sat down. Laughing, Sompong tossed me a straw mat and
a pakama,
a cotton cloth wrap similar to a sarong. I thought, “Wow, I have stuff now.” When I thanked him and tried to offer him a few packs of cigarettes in exchange, he replied with what is probably one of the most typical of Thai responses: “
Mai phen rai.”
(It is nothing.) Then he said, “
Mung gao laaeo.”

I lay there thinking that to be seen as “old already” was maybe not so bad after all. As the slow-moving ceiling fans stirred the heavy Southeast Asian air, what little noise they made was soon drowned out by the ridiculously loud equatorial night sounds. Even with the constant glare of the overhead light, I fell asleep for a few hours. Thankfully, there were far fewer bedbugs in this cell.