Bangkok Hard Time (9 page)

Into “The Crocodile” Via “The Lizard”

I sat on a bench in the holding area in front of a worn wooden desk while a sweaty, overweight guard carried out a cursory, unrewarding search of my bag, ogling and pawing my money. He handed my bag back and did the usual tedious paperwork his job required. As I pretended not to understand any questions asked of me in Thai, he slowly slogged through his intake processing duties. Sometimes he would stop to wipe sweat or verify certain points, using his poor, broken English. It seemed like I was sitting there for a week.

No sooner than we were finished I was hustled onto a barred and screened prison bus with thirty others heading for my new home at Klong Prem Central Prison. As the bus pulled away, I could see my friend Damrong standing on the sidewalk past the exit. He looked like he was trying not to cry. I smiled and waved.

Also on the bus were two Americans who were case partners, one a fat dork and the other a skinny dork. They were being held on drug charges for buying a bag of heroin at the Ambassador Hotel in a sting setup and were fighting their case. This was their fourth trip to court in the last year. It turned out that they were members of some fake Hare Krishna cult that used their costumes to smuggle drugs. They would eventually lose their case and be sentenced to life.

We got into a conversation while on the bus. The skinny one said that the guards would take my bag, cut my pants legs off and put chains on my legs (like those on his legs) when we arrived at Bumbat, the drug-case remand section of the prison. The fat one suggested that if I had any dope, I should let them take it in for me since they knew the ropes. I told them both to get away from me and stay away. I don’t recall ever speaking with those two goofy bastards again. I dug into my bag for my nose spray.

The bus turned into the main prison entrance drive shortly before dark. One Thai prisoner pointed at the tall, gaping, double-door steel gate that was the main entrance of the Lard Yao section of the prison and said, “
Pak jerakay”
(mouth of the crocodile).

We turned left just before the mouth of the crocodile and went about half a click to the northeast corner, then took a right turn and another half a click halfway along the eastern wall. A moat ran parallel to the road which ran around the whole prison wall. The same prisoner pointed at the smaller entrance when it appeared and said, “
Pak hiia”
(mouth of the lizard). The remand section for narcotics cases, this was Bumbat.

The bus drove into the mouth of the lizard and the double doors closed behind. Clambering off the bus, most of the others were wearing heavy leg chains except for the new detainees wearing long pants and clutching small bags. I was clutching mine like it was a beautiful lover whom I soon would part with.

The chain-wearing prisoners were shuffled inside first. The new prisoners, about a dozen, were directed to stand before a dimly lit, open-fronted office. There in the profound beauty of the gathering dusk of a Siamese evening, the kind of dusk that used to titillate me with the exotic promise the Bangkok night held for the adventurous, I tried not to caress my bag too obviously.

At the far end of the office, at the last of the desks lit by a small lamp, sat an officer overseeing the new prisoners’ intake process that was taking place on the concrete lane just outside the front of his office. Under the direction of two guards, a large Thai prisoner-aide instructed all to strip. He began grabbing the bags and court papers of the other prisoners, then handed them to the guards. At that point, I looked to the ranking officer at the back of the office while holding up my bag as if offering it to him. He snapped an order to one of the guards and I was sent into the office to speak with the #2 Bumbat Vice Warden.

On the way to his desk, I remembered Pee Lek telling me that, because of his crippled leg, he had hated having to squat in front of guards if they were seated. Using that old tidbit of info when I myself was placed before the guard, I squatted and set my precious bag on his desk.

He looked at my red eye and asked in broken English if a guard or a prisoner had beaten me. I assured him in the most polite Thai I could muster that I had not been abused, but rather had an eye infection and required the medication in my bag. As he opened it to peruse the contents, I mentioned that I also had US$6,800 and a small amount of Thai baht. I knew from the Group member who had briefly been in Pattaya’s Nong Palai remand prison that your money was taken and placed in a prison store account. I handed over all my cash with my Bangkok Bank check book. Asking him if he could facilitate depositing it in my checking account and put only some small money in my prison account, he allowed that it was possible.

The bag of medications and toiletries, he said, would have to go to the clinic to be checked first and that it possibly would be returned. I took that opportunity to ask if I could use my eye drops before he took it from me. It must have been a reasonable request as he quickly permitted me to use my eye drops and nose spray. And ahhh … it was like a parting kiss from my beloved bag.

With a wave of his hand I was dismissed to join the line of other prisoners. A few steps away from his desk, he asked me, “Have you been in Thai prison before?”

I answered in the negative and, as I turned to walk away, he called after me, saying “
Mung gao laaeo”
(You are already old).

At first, I did not know what to make of this remark. Later I learned that it was simply a rude, backhanded remark that meant he regarded me as a seasoned prison elder.

Back to squatting in the line with the rest of the now nude prisoners, I removed my clothes as well. The prisoner-aide was barking like a drill sergeant at each of the detainees, sometimes threatening to kick one, as he cut off the legs of their pants and actually kicked a few who responded too slowly. That was until he came to the man squatting next to me, who was already wearing tailored shorts. His name was Sompong.

In apparent deference to this man, the aide squatted down, spoke softly, politely and quickly to him. Then, just as quickly, he stood up and barked down at me while snatching up my new pants.

I had earlier been expecting to be strutting my stuff in those pants down at the Patpong bars that very evening … after I had made bail at the courthouse. That pathetic pipe dream was a whole other world away from me now, even as the asshole of an aide commenced to hacking them into ragged shorts. He tossed the legs down to me and barked at me to stand up.

I pretended that I did not understand, so he then addressed me in English, with this warning: “Up, or I kick you.”

Remembering Lek’s tales of guards or guards’ helpers beating the inmates came to mind; here it was, seventeen years later, playing out like a bad movie. Except it was really happening! The jolt was a definite buzz-kill at that point. Not without good reason, I was feeling rather anxious. I glanced at the Vice Warden who, from behind his lamp-lit desk in the recesses of his office, had previously seemed oblivious to the detainees being roughed up and abused out front. I knew that he was clearly watching what was transpiring now, since our eyes met.

As the first thing he had asked was whether I had been beaten by a guard or another prisoner. I was now pretty sure that there was no way this prisoner, was going to touch me unless I touched him first. After all, the Vice Warden had seemed relieved when I had answered no to his question about a beating. The old admonition “Smile and keep your hands to yourself” crossed my mind.

So I stood up, smiled and said softly in Thai, “I don’t think you will.” Not much taken aback, if at all, the aide smiled and, with a quiet chuckle, replied, “
Mung gao laaeo.”

Damn … there was that phrase again about my being “old already”. It had been twice in the last the half hour that I had heard this expression that I had never heard before this. Though not quite sure what it really meant, I agreed with him. I knew that it did not just mean that I was an old man. Hell, I was barely thirty-five years old. Normally, it would not have bothered me had it not been personally directed. I was always hearing things in Thai I did not understand. An interesting twist on the term is that Thai is a tonal language. “Gao” when pronounced with a low tone means old, when pronounced with a rising tone it means clever or wise. Whatever the deeper meaning, it had worked well for me so far. You know that adage that you learn more by listening than by talking? Well, I tried to keep my mouth shut and learn.

At the next gate down the lane, I was confronted by another barefoot prisoner-aide. This one was wearing a tattered white clinic smock and a petroleum jelly-covered rubber glove. I had been feeling lucky to be at the end of the line till I noticed he was using the same glove for everyone ahead of me

Sompong stepped up close to the clinic helper, turned his back but did not bend over and walked away as the prisoner-aide simply said, “OK.”

I stepped up, the last in this group, and briefly bent over slightly out of reach, then quickly stood upright again and walked away as the prisoner-aide said, “OK.” I thanked my good fortune that I had escaped a close encounter of the turd kind with that nasty glove.

We were all herded into the compound of the first long building on the right side of the lane. The ground floor was open on the two longest sides. The gate guard looked at our intake papers and pulled Sompong and me out of the line. We were taken by one of the prisoner-aides to the end of the building where split-ring shackles with chains were hammered onto our ankles. Sompong did not speak … even though I was listening.

From a pile of twine, my silent fellow inmate selected a length which he looped midway through his chain to carry it while walking. The prisoner-aide dropped his hammer, chuckled and tossed me a string. Sompong, already clanging toward the other side of the building, soon had me clanging along not far behind.

On the far side was a five-meter-high wall topped with electric wire. In the area between the building and the wall was a long, wide, blue-tiled trough filled to overflowing with the spigot still open. All our previous new guys were pouring plastic bowls full of water over their heads. I followed suit and immediately regretted it. Unlike the ambient temperature of that from the big clay urn like the one at Lek’s, this water was cold. Crystal clear, clean, cold well water it was. The first bowl that I poured over my head was like frozen broken glass. The second and third were not much better.

I managed to manipulate my cutoffs on through my shackles with some difficulty, then clanged over to join the others. They were squatted in front of large, deep metal plates filled with brown rice covered with some spicy, sliced eggplant soup. I was hungry, so I forced down a few big bites just for the sake of survival. Others were eating with slightly more gusto. But one prisoner ate nothing at all: Sompong.

We were all were directed to use the squatty potty facilities. The common Thai-style toilet is a commode bowl set just below floor level with ceramic foot pads on either side. Plastic bowls of water from an adjacent tank sufficed to cleanse oneself and provided the flush water. Though I had long ago learned to appreciate this style of toilet, it did become a hassle trying to keep your chains out of it.

Following this, we were led up the stairs at the end of the building on the second floor and shuffled into the first of six lockup rooms. There were three cells on either side of a wide aisle. The first cell on the right was where all new detainees were held for their first night. The guard opened the door in the middle of that cell. We entered a five by ten--meter room with bars from waist level up along the two longest walls. The outside wall’s barred window was screened. End walls were solid with a two-meter-wide raised wooden platform running along the cell length on both sides. A one-meter-wide aisle ran between them with a short wall-enclosed toilet area consisting of a squatty potty and water tank.

It was to that end of the cell we all were directed. The guard opened a lock on the bar that ran through rings at the foot of the sleeping platform. In broken English, the guard instructed me to lie down next to Sompong, who had already taken his position. Our chains were wrapped around the bar as it was slid back through the rings and the lock re-engaged. The rest of the new prisoners at that end of the cell, though crowded in so tightly they had to sit upright, found enough space so that the closest were out of Sompong’s reach. Even in silence, his vibe was palpable. It said, “Leave me alone.” I mimicked his example and tried to adopt the same demeanor, but to no obvious effect: the others were still sitting right next to me.

Those around us sat chattering nervously; they were still having withdrawal symptoms. At the other end of the room, the dozen or so older prisoners had been lying on individual mattresses when we came in. Now with beds rolled up, they were gathered in a circle on each platform. A sumptuous selection of delicious smelling Thai dishes from a stack of tin bowls was being distributed by a young prisoner squatting in the aisle between them.

One of the elders sent the boy down to Sompong with a cup of tea and plate of pork fried rice with two poached eggs. Sitting up to receive the food, he smiled for the first time that I had ever seen, and gave a nod to the elder, whom the boy server indicated had sent this gift. He took a few huge bites, sipped some tea, smiled and nodded again at his benefactor. Then, handing me the plate (or rather setting it on my stomach), he lay back down.

I sat up and, copying his actions, enjoyed a couple of bites. I smiled, nodded at the elder who had sent it and even though I wanted more, I set it aside. From there, it was quickly shared by the others around me, who were now, for some reason, sitting just out of my reach.

I sipped some of the remaining tea, set it aside, and it, too, disappeared. I then lay back down, but the settling calm was suddenly interrupted a few moments later. A clamor arose on the opposite side of the cell. A new detainee was going bonkers, running across the others on the opposite sleeping platform and hurling himself headlong into the end wall. When that did not have the desired effect, he dove head first onto the concrete aisle between the platforms. That seemed to work. At least he is quiet now, appeared to be the general consensus among the other prisoners.