Goatie 8

The prison governor came to see me in my cell. Late forties, bags under his eyes, dressed in a grey suit. ‘I don’t know what you’ve been doing, or how you’ve been doing it, but I want you to stop now.’

 A warden stood guard at the door. The walls vibrated as Harry the Hatchet grunts as he put in the maximum effort, before toning it down to something easy like running a marathon barefoot in a twelve-foot cell.

I waited until the bed stopped vibrating before I answered. ‘I didnae dae anythin. I jist fell asleep.’ I look at his face and tired eyes. Try to keep myself in the clear and away from all those places of fear. I’d heard hard cases had asked to be moved from single cells so they don’t have to be alone. The whispering disease has chilled them, stripped the covers from their beds and brought out their worst fears.

‘I’m warning you.’ The governor waved a finger in my direction. But he’s severed all connection with the habit of being in charge. Even the warden rolls his eyes and smirks out of his eye line.

‘I’ll dae my best.’ I don’t want to disappoint him.

‘Just see that you do.’ The governor hurries past the warden entombed more than me.  

Harry the Hatchet appears at the open door. Lunchtime.  We forgot about governors and wardens. Food becomes something more than something to eat, but entertainment. Something to look forward to even though what was on offer at thirty pence a man is the equivalent of a slow-motion mercy killing, one chew at a time.

All those years of exercising, jumping up in the air and landing cat-like, and Harry the Hatchet tripped on a step. Face down, smacking the floor with a dull sound. I heard someone shouting for a warden. Another man laughing.

He squatted down as if to do a dead-lift, but whispered, ‘Get up ya stupid cunt.’

Harry twisted his neck and felt for his bloodied nose, burst lips and loosened teeth. His  eyes widen in his blood mask as he squinted up at Vic. ‘Stop laughin,’ he gurgled.

I tried to help him up, but he was too square and heavy. When he took my sweaty hand to help himself up, my legs ached and I got cramp in my hamstrings. I nearly toppled on top of him.

‘Leave the stupid cunt,’ Vic told me.

Harry the Hatchet is already up wiping at his nose with his spandex wrist bands and hobbling behind us. ‘I don’t think it’s broke,’ he gurgles. His tongue pokes out and he licks the blood from his nose.

Other prisoners levitate to the left of right and move out of our way.  Late seventies, still thin, face that creased with age into something approaching understanding that if Vic wants nut roast for lunch, he gets it. I get a dollop too, with carrots and potatoes, whether I want it or not. But it smells great with gravy that actually runs and not congealed.

‘Nice,’ I smile at Vic as we sit at a table together facing each other

‘Nice enough,’ he picks up some salt and tears it open, sprinkling it over his meal. ‘Yeh want some?’

‘Nah, I’m good.’ I spear a potato with a plastic knife and chew.

‘So yer the goat man?’

‘I’ve been called worse.’

‘Funny that, you never see a crow wae a cross around its neck. Or a dog wearing a dog collar, even though they’re name after them. All that religion messes yer brain and dress sense. If yer gonnae wear somethin stupid, be twelve or thirteen, and no older. Yeh wouldnae want a dog dressing as a paedophile priest—no that I’m saying all priests ur paedos—in the same way no all dogs are pedigrees. Yeh get my drift?’

‘I cannae dae anythin.’  

He mangles a laugh. Can’t do, sounded like wouldn’t do. He’d a way of working with that which wasn’t pretty but was effective. ‘Yeh want some grapes?’ He holds up a hand and one of the kitchen staff brings them over and plonks them down on the table.

‘Let  me tell  yeh a secret that’s no a secret. I’m tired. Aw good tae me is gone. Everywhere I go there’s cobwebs. Yeh don’t see them when yer young—unless yer a spider. As yeh get older yeh get mair stupid. An they start growin on the insides. In yer brain. I’m gettin it bad.’ He’d a smile like melting toffee. I’m no gonnae be wan o them drooling simpletons.

His eyes dropped from somewhere over my shoulders to may face. Sweat in his eyes. He blinked it away and looks at me as if he was looking at someone with horns. ‘I head yeh can walk through walls.’ A man not scared or angry, but a man putting down his last face card and waiting to see whether he’s won or lost.

‘I cannae dae anythin.’

He picks up a grape and chews. ‘Yeh’ve probably heard about me?’

‘No,’ I lie.

‘Well let me tell yeh. When I was a wain, my ma tied me and my brother tae her and jumped off the Kingston Bridge wae bricks in her bag. When yer under the water—where aw life began—it doesnae matter whit age yeh ur.

Drowning is a non-certifiable disease. Hope is when yeh come up for air. Praying is for solid ground beneath yer feet. That  yeh ll get another chance, another before and after. Do fish hear yer screams? It’s easy to go under without paying for a grave, owning a plot. The water wraps around yeh, smooths out the wrinkles, the grey hair, a spine clasping yeh like a lock knife. Water softens yeh up and it takes its time to eat yeh because it’s got aw the time in the world.

Don’t ask me how I survived, or if I wanted tae survive wae my Ma and brother drowned.’

He leans in. ‘I heard the goats whispering. They can take me under the water again. I’m seventy-wan noo. I don’t want tae see my seventy-second birthday, comprende?’

‘When’s yer seventy-second birthday?’

‘The morra.’

When all hope dies, death lives and breathes and stretches his legs, just like him as he gets up to leave. The creaking of his shoes on the floor as he walks away without looking back.