You Don't Know Me

What I heard was that Spooks had been a crack and meth dealer. He weren’t nothing high up, just a soldier. But a drug soldier is like a real soldier in one way and that is that he is usually the first one to get popped. When Spooks got caught though, it turned out he was looking at a fifteen guaranteed. Fifteen years! The Feds had gone to his yard and found the whole fucking circus there. There were scales, cutting agents, a bag of pills and a kilo of coke. They even found a nine mil. It was the shooter that was going to bury him. Five years for that and probably another ten on top for the drugs.

Now there are two kinds of people in the world. There are those who can do a fifteen-year sentence standing on their heads and there are those who can’t. The ones who can ain’t usually drug addicts. Spooks was a crack addict and like crack addicts everywhere he would have sold his mum for a draw if she’d been alive. When he found out he was looking at a fifteen, Spooks apparently collapsed on the spot. When he came round again, he did the only thing he could. He went Queen’s Evidence on his supplier. For that he got a text from the police and a discount of five years on his time. It also got him a death sentence from the supplier. Nobody likes a grass innit?

This shit is all supposed to be secret. The police tell you that they will keep your name out of it. They don’t even mention in court that a person has helped the police. The judge don’t even mention it in court. The judge just gets the ‘text’, which is basically a note, from the police and then gives a low sentence. That is what is supposed to happen. Word is what actually happened was that after the sentence the police went to see the dealer and told him that Spooks had grassed him up. Just so that they could try and get the dealer to give a confession. They basically didn’t give a shit what happened to Spooks. Far as they were concerned, he was just a low life. Which, to be fair, he was. Still is.

That first night on the wing must have been a nightmare for Spooks. It would have been bad enough that he was clucking, you know like cold turkey, but on top of that he was a grass. And you know what happens to a grass in jail or if you don’t you probably can guess. Four separate people tried to shank him that night and three of them didn’t even have nothing to do with it. They just didn’t like informers. So after that they put him on the numbers, which is like segregation, and he spent the next two years on twenty-three-hours bang-up. Twenty-three hours in a cell is some hard time, I tell you. I don’t even think they lock up zoo animals that long. But as far as Spooks was concerned he was better off there than in general population. In general pop, he knew he wouldn’t even last as long as it took for him to shit himself.

He was safe for a while but he was still waiting for what he knew was inevitable. One way or another they would get to him. He knew that.

They got to him eventually through the screws. And I know about screws, the prison guards. I been on remand for the last year waiting for my trial. I’m not supposed to tell you that I am currently in prison in case it prejudices my case. It’s like if I’m in prison waiting for my trial I must have done the crime. But I don’t mind telling you. I’m up on a murder, that’s prejudice enough. Besides, I’m bound to be on remand – it is murder, innit? Where else they going to put me? You ain’t stupid. You know that they put murderers in prison while they wait for their trial. Even if they are innocent. Like me.

When I started I thought prison was like them and us. Us, being the inmates and them being the screws. It’s not like that. What it is, is them and them and you. In fact screws and other prisoners got more in common with each other than they got with you. That sounds weird but it’s true. Because no inmate and no screw gives a fuck about you unless there’s something in it for them. And a screw will do what he wants and if what he wants is to give you up to some next villain, he will. Some do it for a few dollars on the side. Others will do it just for kicks. Anyways it was the screws that got to him. They let a boy on to the wing pushing a library trolley and just as Spooks came to pick up a magazine or something, he wet him up. It wasn’t pretty.

Maybe I should tell you lot about that. Stuff you learn in prison, man. ‘Wet-up’. What it is, yeah, is you get a cup of boiling water. Dissolve a load of sugar in it to make it stick. Then you throw it in the guy’s face. Brutal. I know. But it turns out that he deserved every second of agony he got.