“Young man in charge of the Evidence Room.”
“Yeah?”
“He has a Britney thing. I donned the outfit from her first video, the school gym? The wet dream of middle-aged guys everywhere.”
Skeptical.
“And what, he just gave it to you?”
She fumbled for a flask of coffee, said,
“I gave him a blow job.”
Jesus!
I poured the coffee, settled back to read, a way in, thought,
“Holy fuck!”
She asked,
“How you liking it so far, Mr. Johnson?”
“Christ, everybody seems to hate me.”
She shrugged, said,
“Now you know how Sting feels.”
She asked,
“So where’s your manners, bud?”
“Excuse me?”
“You don’t feel a wee mite of gratitude for the U.S. marshal hat?”
I let lots of hard leak over my tone, said,
“Rohipnol? Fucking date rape. . you really want to go there, to revisit the source of the. . misdemeanor?”
She laughed, mock-shuddered, said,
“Oh. . scary. . I think I’m a little turned on.”
No real answer to that involves any sanity. I noticed a small logo on the dashboard, read:
Go gangsta,
Go ghetto.
How non-Irish do you get? I asked,
“Might I inquire who you’ll be today?”
She used a dashboard lighter to fire up. I kid you not, a fuckin spiff, inhaled deep, said,
“Hope the fuck I don’t get the munchies.”
Offered me the joint, I said,
“One dope per car seems sufficient.”
She snorted, then,
“To answer your previous, in light of this. .”
waved the joint,
“. . I was thinking, Nancy Botwin, you know, from Weeds?”
Terse, I snapped,
“I know who she is, Mary-Louise Parker.”
She said,
“Jesus, got you already.”
Mercifully, we were approaching Portlaoise. She stopped the car suddenly, looked right at me, asked,
“Right now, this moment, what would you most like to be doing?”
“Not sitting here in a yellow bug, not a spit from prison with. . Sybil.”
Her eyes were serious, no dancing lunacy, she said,
“I’m serious, tell me.”
“Well, in my apartment, sipping fifty-year-old whiskey from the oak, watching Borgen with maybe the collected short stories of Amy Hempel as backup.”
I thought I saw a wetness touch her eyes, then she was back to biz, grabbing a battered briefcase, fixing her hair, said,
“That’s probably the saddest thing I ever heard.”
Portlaoise Prison is Ireland’s only high-security prison. Beside it is Midland Prison, a newer medium-security unit.
Built in 1830, it is notorious for the number of Provos there. Now it houses Ireland’s most dangerous criminals,
Drug gangs,
Killers,
Rapists.
Irish Republican prisoners are on the old E-Block.
Irish Defense Forces are used as Guards. An exclusion zone operates over the entire complex,
Assault rifles,
Antiaircraft guns.
Notable inmates: Angelo Fusco
Martin Ferris
Dessie O’Hare
John Gilligan
Paul Magee
In 2007, John Daly, an inmate, phoned the radio show Live Line. His call resulted in Guards seizing fifteen hundred items of contraband:
Mobile phones
Plasma TVs
and incredibly, a budgie, smuggled in by a visitor concealing it in his buttocks! Whole new meaning to “a bird in the hand” or indeed “doing bird.” Daly had to be transferred owing to the death threats from the inmates.
Released in 2007, he was celebrating with a night out and was murdered.
The Caged Bird Sang No More.
I asked,
“Who are we supposed to be to gain entrance?”
She was all manic energy now, said,
“I’m the lawyer of note and you are the beloved, elderly Irish uncle.”
“Hey, enough with the elderly.”
She nearly smiled, said,
“Least you won’t have to work hard to get into character.”
The Guards gave us the full security gig, eye-fucking as they did. Eventually, we were led into a small room, told No. 2035789 would be along shortly. Em, who for reasons best known to herself had adopted a haughty Brit accent, snapped,
“He does have a name.”
The Guard, delighted he had riled her, said,
“Not in here.”
Pause.
“Ma’am.”
The tone was,
Bitch!
We sat on hard metal chairs, a beat-up table before us. Someone had gouged into the top:
Kilroy was here
. . didn’t last
Deep.
She said,
“You never asked what my ideal moment would be.”
As the door opened, I said,
“Like I give a shit.”
“Let he who has not been stoned
cast the first sin.”
A warden, built like a brick shithouse, led Boru into the room. He was dressed in faded denims, way too large. He looked like a twelve-year-old. The warden pushed him to a chair, facing us, then moved back to stand, arms folded, against the wall. A heavy link chain circled the guy’s belt, clanked as he moved. It was the sound of punishment. Boru never looked up, his head down like a penitent’s.
Em barked at the warden in a Maggie Thatcher “Don’t fuck with me” tone.
“Some privacy please.”
Reluctantly, slowly, he withdrew. I said,
“Boru, hey buddy, it’s Jack.”
He raised his head as if it hurt. A dark bruise ran from his right eye all down to his jaw. It looked swollen. I didn’t ask.
“How are you?”
How he was, was badly fucked. I said,
“This is Em, she’s going to get you out.”
Yeah, right.
Boru said, his mouth revealing a bloody gap where his fine American front teeth had been,
“I want to go home.”
It reminded me of Thomas Wolfe’s You Can’t Go Home Again.
I didn’t share this literary gem. Em asked,
“Besides the underwear they found, has your lawyer said the prosecutors have anything else?”
He looked at her, his eyes off-kilter, then,
“I didn’t take her. . intimate things.”
Em slammed the table hard with the palm of her hand, startling Boru and me. She snapped,
“Get with the program, kid. . man up for Chrissake.”
It focused him, he tried,
“Don’t be mean to me.”
Unrelenting, she pushed,
“We’re all you’ve got. Now I want to know if the bloody knickers are all they’ve got.”
He stammered,
“The st. . stalking, they say. . I did that.”
She waved it off.
“Overzealous admiration, no biggie.”
She stood up, said,
“I think we’re done here.”
Boru was amazed, pleaded,
“Can’t you stay a bit?”
She was already gathering her things, said,
“No offense, kiddo, but you’re hardly riveting company.”
He turned to me, asked,
“Jack, will I get out?”
He might get out but, judging by his appearance, he wasn’t ever coming back.
In the movies, this is where the good guy reassures,
“Stay strong, we’ll get you out.”
And other such shite.
I said,
“Keep your head down.”
Em added,
“But try not to give head.”
She pounded the door, shouted,
“Yo, Cruickshank, we’re done.”
I didn’t give Boru a comforting pat on the shoulder. He’d been touched enough.
Back in the car, I asked,
“You got a cig?”
She did.
We fired up, then she blew rubber as we got the hell out of there. Ten minutes in, she said,
“Saga Norén, in case you were wondering.”
The fuck was she on about? I asked,
“What?”
“Who I’d like to be. The icy, semi-autistic cop in The Bridge.”