How my cell mate helped me adapt to prison life

Even though I had read up enough about the lives of political prisoners, and learned the importance of community behind the bars, I found myself insecure and unsure in the first few days of being imprisoned at Her Majesty’s Prison Preston in the U.K., on charges of “conspiracy to commit criminal damage” to a Trident nuclear weapon submarine. Imprisoned for six months in September 1998, I maintained a regular diary; prison diaries have, after all, been part of the resistance history. 

Sept. 18, 1998
Her Majesty’s Prison Preston, U.K. 

Day 1 to 7 of imprisonment

I am sitting on the bench in the reception in a room with several other inmates. This is my first day at Preston Prison. I am tense and alert. My name is called by the doctor. He is dressed in a white coat; his bald head is sweaty. He looks at me annoyed. A form is tossed onto his side of the messy desk. He sighs, stares at the form for a moment, then asks me questions at the speed of a machine gun. He makes it abundantly clear that he has done this an infinite number of times and each time it has been equally pointless and uninteresting: but it must be done. 

I quickly answer questions about my previous illnesses and food allergies. Some questions seem to survey my health and lifestyle. Maybe they are commissioned by authorities or researchers for their statistics on the criminal class? He waits for my lingering answers. Some questions seem a bit strange. We are making slow progress. 

He doesn’t look at me but keeps staring down at the paper.

“Have you had any homosexual relationships?” he asks in his monotone voice.

“Why do you want to know that? What is this form actually used for?” 

He looks at me with a bright red face, snorts something, throws the form aside and stands up. He grabs my arm and leads me out of the room.

Confused, I find myself in the waiting room again. The doctor complains loudly to one of the guards:

“Fucking nutter! Just messing about, wasting my time!”

A middle-aged man with greasy hair looks at me curiously. I avoid his gaze and sit in a corner. I rummage through my cardboard box, to check if everything is intact: two books on English law, a pile of articles on theory of power, an address list of people I am supposed to write to, light brown sheets, a green blanket, plastic cutlery, a worn blue plastic mug, and a white plastic bowl. The police retained the photos of my partner, my necklace, the stamps, pens, and my wallet with money and credit card. And they also took my clothes and the action tools, of course.

A television on the wall has a soap opera playing. Every now and then the guards or the doctor come in and shout names: “Springer!” “Thomson!” “Collins!” About 20 men are sitting or walking around in the room. A bald man with a beard sits and stares at the floor. A guy who doesn’t look more than 18-years-old confidently rolls a cigarette. I stare at his hands, fascinated. Some sit and talk intensively to each other. Probably not the first time that they have been here together. Everyone has the same prison clothes as me: red or blue shirts or T-shirts, and blue jeans.

A man walks up and down the room hastily, all the while smoking and muttering to himself. He is wearing a leather belt. How did he get to keep his sash when I didn’t? He has the same narrow and brown low shoes as me. Mine don’t quite fit.

I am staring into my cardboard box, which has my shirts and underwear. It feels strange to wear big white underpants that were previously worn by someone else. All my clothes are marked “HMP” and “Her Majesty’s Prison.” I doubt the Queen has spent a night here. 

My train of thoughts are interrupted when one man says something to me. I look up and only see his mouth, and the brown stumps and gaps in his teeth. “Sorry, what?” I say twice before a middle-aged person sitting next to me says: “He wants to borrow tobacco from you, mate. It’s called ‘burn,’ you know.”

“Sorry, I do not have any,” I say and feel guilty. I have two cigarettes left in a pack in the box.

About an hour later, we are served food. They call it “tea”; it’s five in the evening. A brown mess of tasteless boiled potatoes and boiled carrots. The English have a strange food culture. I force the food down: I have no idea when the next meal will be. I am having trouble letting go of what happened inside the doctor’s office. What would be the consequences? After a while I realize that in a couple of days the doctor won’t even recognize me.

***

I end up in a cell in the D-block with Steve, a drug user undergoing detoxification. When we get to know each other a little, Steve tells me the guards warned him, saying that I was “a little crazy but okay.”

“It made me a little nervous at first,” he admits. “But you are really cool, man.”

He was a punk rocker in his youth and thinks my action — a peaceful action of nuclear disarmament — is “Fucking amazing!” 

Steve has a short haircut, a thin body, dark rings around his eyes, and looks worn down. Suddenly he gets a chill and his eyes become glossy. He wanders back and forth in the small space of our cell. He can only walk three steps at a time before he has to turn around. After a while he lays down on the bed, beads of sweat running down his face. But then a guard opens the door, calls his name and Steve steps out for a while. When he returns he is calmer, and lies down on his abdomen. He lights a cigarette:

“Earlier in life, I practiced meditation and yoga. Now I exercise every day. It helps okay. I just feel bad right before it’s time for the medicine.”

He says that he got into drugs again when he started using the “cure” for drugs, Methadone, as his new high. 

When he offers me juice from a mug, I wonder if he has washed it, and I hesitate. He sees my suspicion, understands immediately and says: “It’s cool, I promise. I have never borrowed other people’s syringes. I may be a junkie, but I would never in my life do something so stupid.” I accept the mug and try to smile even though I feel silly.

He rolls his cigarette, looks me in the eye, and says, “Now I can finally get a chance to stop. We are moving from our residential area. My son will not end up in any drug gangs. As long as I get out of here clean, we’ll move. Then it will get better.”

It is getting late. I lay down in my freshly-made bed to sleep my first night in prison. I begin reading a book about Manchester United; it is the only book from the prison library that we have in the cell. I fall asleep almost directly.

***

The next day, it feels unsafe to leave the cell and go out into the cellblock amid the crowd of prisoners and shouting guards. No one has told me what’s going on. I see some prisoners standing in line in front of a guard who is looking down into a binder, taking notes. A few others huddle near one of the bulletin boards. I am interrupted in my thoughts when a female guard walks up to me. She looks at me sideways, points to another queue and says, “Come on! Hurry up if you want breakfast.”

I start formulating a question, but she has already turned her back on me. Instead, I go over to the food line. When I’m back in the cell and the door is shut, I realize my tea mug is empty. 

At the next meal, I am ready long before the door opens. I follow Steve and imitate what he does: check for letters, get the food, fill up water for tea, catch a guard to ask for a pen. “You will get a pen later,” he says. 

During the few minutes I am outside the cell, I try to get as much done as possible. I have learned that guards get annoyed if they have to wait and they will not open the door again if I forget something.

***

Our two-person cell is about seven square meters. The roof is rounded, and the brick walls are painted with a thick yellow-white paint. The window is fitted with a strong metal grill and a shutter.

The bunk bed is bolted to the floor and one wall. The bed is worn; the hard mattress has a deep hole in the middle. I have one oblong flat pillow that is inexplicably unusable. But yesterday I managed to steal an extra blanket that I use as a pillow.

By the other wall is a rickety desk. Next to it is the toilet and the steel sink. There are no walls or privacy. We each have a worn-out Ikea-like dresser with two pull-out drawers. By the door is a light button and an alarm button. A pipe runs along one wall at the floor level; it heats the cell with hot water.

When I’m not lying down reading or exercising on the floor, I sit at the desk and write letters. But I still have no stamps and no pen. I borrowed some from Steve for now. 

I have learned that twice a week, I can use the shower, TV, telephone, table tennis or the library. But I have to choose carefully because I only have one hour. If the guards are in a good mood, I can get out for 30 minutes each day, walking in a circle around the fenced yard. As soon as I realized that I would be locked inside my small cell for 23 hours on most days, I applied to go to school and the gym. Then I can get out between four and five hours a day. But approvals might take a month; there is a long waitlist. 

Despite the challenges, I feel privileged. Having the social resources and motivation to be in prison is rare. For most, it is a failure and a real catastrophe to end up here.

***

One day, Steve gets a visit from his wife and teenage son. I’m sitting at the desk reading when he comes back to our cell. He talks fast and can’t sit still. He is worried about his son: “He is mature and understands that he now has to help mom cope, that he is the man of the house for a while,” says Steve as he fumbles with the next cigarette.

On Friday evening, after my first week inside, a cold wind blows in through the shutter. Steve shows me how to seal the draft with newspapers. When we’re done, we sit down at the desk. Steve teaches me a prison rap:

“You got to walk the walk
Not just talk the talk
But don’t do the crime
If you can’t do the time”

I ask him straight out: “I have only been in prison for short periods before. I don’t know what to think and do. Do you have any advice?”

“You must wrap the sandwiches for the evening in toilet paper so that they stay soft. Always be vigilant so that you are not robbed when you step out of the cell. Keep no stuff near the door. Stock up on anything you can get your hands on: salt and sugar bags, jam packets. You can use them later to exchange for something you need.”

Steve says that he always makes a list of requests so that he is prepared when a guard who seems decent shows up. From going to the dentist to getting new toilet paper. He points at me and says emphatically, “You have to take the chance you get the seconds before the ‘screw’ [guard] closes the door or when he is standing idle watching the food queue.” 

“You have to show respect for the screws, and not because they deserve it.” 

He looks out through the peephole in the door, and continues, “Most are just piles of shit. But you have to understand that they feel as bad as the prisoners here. Worse! Okay most guys have a crisis at some point, but we move on in life. We’ll get out of here sooner or later, but they are in here for life. Their pay is crap. They became guards because the military and police didn’t want them. They are screw-ups. Their only kick in life is to humiliate us. If you provoke them, they feel at their best. Watch out for the Broiler, the bodybuilder on the block. He is completely fucked up. Empty. Just muscles. He knocked down a little guy last week. The guy ended up in the infirmary. Now the Broiler walks around and shines.”

Steve borrows some tobacco from me. “Treat them as if they were something; they like that. Then you will do well. But you don’t have to lick their asses. It’s not worth it.”

I have discovered that most prisoners address the guards as “boss,” but Steve refuses. He inspires me and I decide to call them “sir” or “mister,” as they do in England when addressing a stranger on the street. It is respectful, but without subordination. 

While talking with Steve, I gradually realize that life in prison — or in “the joint,” as he calls it — is its own science. A society with its own rules for survival and success. I had carefully studied the official rules during my action preparations, but the prisoners’ survival rules are not in any book. I now realize I have to learn them myself by listening and being observant.

When I’m finally trying to fall asleep, I notice that my thoughts revolve around all the rules I have to remember. I wonder what happens if you break some invisible law. If it’s something serious I might get into real trouble. The guards can punish me by moving me to a special section. What can the inmates do? I worry, I fall asleep late.

The next day my spoon and mug disappear when I turn my back for a few moments.