Goatie 21

I didn’t know what to think when Droopy Eyes left. I was stuck with Marie Osmond’s classics. I’d the Medic’s room to myself for whole weekend. Another medic looked in on me now and again. I hadn’t even bothered learning his name. If mine hadn’t been written down, I’m sure he wouldn’t have known it either. He never looked me in the eye, always being too busy. My old man said that was a measure of a man. That and a firm handshake. I thought of the shift medic as Mr Tadpole, because he was thin and wriggly, with an oversized dome head.

I supposed some of the other prisoners would have thought me lucky. I’d three meals a day, with snacks. Boner’s meals were also delivered. Nobody seemed to care one way or the other if they were eaten. There was only so much grub I could stuff myself with. In the same way there was only so much wanking you could do.

The whole world seemed to me a prison. Bars on all sides. Everything locked up and cocked up. Divvied up. They called that living outside. Here, at least, there was a firm belief in theft as a way of life. All men were crooks by their very nature. Some men were just better at hiding it than others. For every hero there had to be hundreds of thousands sad suckers like us doing all the work. Thrown into the front line, fighting battles, in which winning or losing just meant there’d be another front. Another final victory—until the next time. Fucking Paper Roses.

I heard the door opening and looked over. The Tadpole was guiding Reverend Soutar into the room. I reminded the medic, ‘I need a shower, pal’.

He didn’t answer, helping Reverend Soutar over to Boner’s bed. He pulled the screens around. I didn’t think he was going to have sex with him, but tadpoles get everywhere and some turn into horny frogs. I bent my neck to get a better look and listened more closely. I thought about getting out of bed and tiptoeing, perhaps claiming I needed to use the toilet. But there wasn’t anything there I really wanted to see that much.

The Tadpole was using that high-pitched squeal as a signalling device. Adults used to cajole kids or with cats. It seemed to work. When he pulled the screens away, Reverend Soutar was in bed laid out like a plank, what was left of his hair fluffed up, with only his head showing. His face was pasty and it was difficult to tell if he was living or dead. I couldn’t see him breathing. But that wasn’t unusual with Reverend Soutar. His work suit and celestial garb was laid out neatly in the chair beside his bed. The plastic collar hanging like a half- moon. Whether he was for heaven or hell, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t believe in either.

The Tadpole wrote in the chart at the end of his bed. Nobody else would read it but me and to me it made no sense. So I decided to save time and ask the medic. ‘Whit’s the matter wae him?’

The Tadpole held the clipboard and gave me that expression which meant don’t ask. Before he hung it on the bed and hurrying away, he answered. ‘He’s auld.’

‘Fuck me,’ I cried to his retreating back before he banged the door and locked us in. ‘I never noticed. I’m auld tae.’   

I settled back down and might even have dozed off. Next thing they’re coming in with supper. It wasn’t really much. Cup to tea, but there was a bun with it. I tried to remember if it was a special occasion like Easter or my birthday. I couldn’t rule any of them out. I’d lost track of time.

Revered Soutar had a cup of tea and Belgian bun beside his bed. I’d a moral dilemma. It seemed fair to steal from a dead man that hadn’t risen, Boner. But I wasn’t sure if it was alright to steal from a dead man that might rise, Reverend Soutar. But it was also a sin to let things go to waste, especially with global warming, and almost fifty percent of food—and Belgian buns in particular—going uneaten. Prisons used to have their own farms or get farmers to come and take that kind of stuff away to feed slops to the pigs. Then the pigs would be made into sausages and fed to those sloping out. It was the unDisneyist circle of life-lies, before the EEC intervened and banned slopping out, or feeding pigs their own body parts. But it had symmetry of sorts. Everybody could have their sausage and eat it.  

 I picked at my teeth. I figured if Reverend Soutar was senile, like Nigel Farage, he wouldn’t know where Belgium was. Perhaps they’d worked together. I got up and creeped over to Reverend Soutar’s bed. I put a hand across and noted his tea had been left to go cold. He was breathing very heavily. I fanned him with my hand. His face was yellowish and waxen, but it was usually that way. But he’d an unsual glow about him.

He sat up and gripped my wrist. And I squealed. ‘Aw right, yeh can huv the Beligian bun.’

‘Christ has risen,’ he said.

The cup and saucer both cracked in two at the same time. Tea splattering the table. I did my best mopping it up. In films on the telly they always close the eyes of the dead. But I guess that wasn’t the best education. If I’d a pointed wooden stake I might have driven it through his heart with a wooden mallet just to make sure. But he was smiling like he’d finally got the joke of the Belgian bun. I left it untouched.