Flower Lounge (3A) -- Hellhole (part one)

It’s puzzling how butterflies get to symbolise love and freedom.

Simply can’t associate the flighty insect trembling in even a modest breeze with the indestructible Steve McQueen in Papillon. As for the Butterfly Lovers, they should stay inside the tomb in a private and secured ossified embrace if they truly love and enjoy each other. Instead, they transmogrify into powdery butterflies and venture outside. What for? To look pretty in the eyes of wasps and ants and rats and frogs which see them as mere snacks? For a two-week honey-half-moon if they don’t bump into a hungry bird perching right next to the opening tomb? But regardless of my impression of the pathetic insect, it’s an undeniable fact that they have survived an everything-may-eat-butterflies world for many million years, gradually becoming a love and liberty icon.

As our wheeled cage turns into the narrow Butterfly Valley Road, Hong Kong’s worst hellhole looms at the dead end, bluntly highlighting a stark sense of irony.

The heavily fenced complex appears gloomy and weary, probably never been renovated since opening in the 1970s. To refurbish a restaurant without closing it down is challenging enough. To facelift a busy jailhouse must be practically impossible. Plus a new paint job may spoil the image of a celebrated dungeon.

All prisoners on remand, the newly convicted, as well as serving inmates transferring between Hong Kong’s thirty-plus jailing institutions to and from hospitals, courthouses and other destinations are first gathered here for processing and re-distribution. It’s the central jailbird exchange — a bustling hellhole.

Suspects are usually remanded for two reasons: The dangerous nature of their alleged crime, or inability to post bail. The latter is far more common. Poverty and imprisonment go back a long way. In the old days, suspects bribed magistrates and jail-guards directly. In modern times, they bribe the system with bails. The pivotal role of money in justice hasn’t changed, just becoming more open and transparent, therefore invisible to most.

To the remanded, LCK is in theory purgatory, not full-fledged hell. But suspects could remain suspiciously innocent for a long time. The average trial in the lower courts lasts nearly a year. In more complicated cases, it could be more than two. I now have personal experience moonwalking through the timeless landscape of a magistrate’s work life.

Remanded inmates are technically not yet guilty. They enjoy a higher degree of freedom. More precisely, they suffer a lower degree of restraint. They can keep their hairstyle, and are permitted authorised food and cigarettes brought by visitors. They are also not assigned chores to kill unwanted time. Their uniforms are a hopeless grey instead of shitty brown like those worn by ordained cons. That’s about it. Otherwise, they are prisoners in style and substance, getting roasted at nominally lower temperature. Whether it makes a difference being grilled at 800C or incinerated at above 1200C — dioxin-free — depends on personal perception.

Luckily, most remanded would not end up feeling unjustly aggrieved, as the conviction rates are high. Statistics tells us acquittal is rare for inmates on remand, especially those represented by Legal Aid. In private, legal professionals seem to agree that the principle of innocent until proven guilty doesn’t exist in practice. ‘Legal principles with sporadic Latin words are like election slogans — not to be taken seriously.’ So what if one were miraculously exonerated after spending a year at LCK. To the hand-to-mouth class, it means joblessness, disrepute regardless of verdict, even a shattered home deserted by a hungry wife. Eventual discharge only delivers them from purgatory to a wrecked heaven — cold, cloudy, desolate.

John and I are trucked straight to LCK from court for assessment, categorisation, and onward dispatch to one of the slammers. Upon arrival, someone unlocks the cuffs and leaves us alone without further instructions.

I join other new arrivals, lumbering along until reaching the registration desk.

‘Name!’ The officer lifts his eyes without moving his head, then returns them to the big thick registry opened before him.

I answer dutifully.

‘Offence?’ he asks the registry, but I assume he wants an answer from me.

‘Eh, ICAC…’ It’s a long story. To properly explain my offence takes time.

The officer understands my technically incorrect answer and interrupts me before I continue. ‘Where did you sleep last night?’

‘Pardon me?’

I don’t mean to withhold the information — at home of course, in my bed — but am momentarily confused by the odd question.

‘Move on.’

He’s in no mood to entertain ignorance, and evidently good at guessing answers. He writes something down. I wonder what it is. Not many civil servants have retained his efficient no-nonsense style since Her Majesty’s administrators went home in 1997. Government workers these days tend to have neither temper or authority, or purpose.

I move on as instructed, shuffling along with the seemingly erratic flow.

Had I imagined a prison setting before, I might have pictured a dim hall packed with downcast men listening to the echoes of a leaky tap. This waiting room reminds me of the first day of school after summer break instead, though convicts are even more exuberant and foulmouthed than teenage boys. Greetings and conversations are predominantly expletives, with little content in between. Phrases designed to insult and provoke are used to facilitate bonding. Old pals, busy with their own criminal activities, had not met up for a while. What a pleasant surprise, though not really a surprise…to run into each other at LCK.

Dew Lay Lo Mo Hai — Fuck your mother’s! Thought I’d fucking bump into you here! Where the fuck else huh?

Dew Lay Lo Mo! You won’t fucking believe where I've fucking been man…fuck fuck fuck!

Mother-fucking greetings charge the reception hall with friendship and nostalgia and excitement. Many appear thrilled to be back. Perhaps they are indeed happy to be taking a break from the small dark world out there, in the relative safety of a correctional institution?

An officer looks up from his work and shrieks: ‘Dew Lay Lo Mo! Be quiet!’

Everyone quiets down for a face-giving minute, then resumes spontaneously.

The officer carries on with his task as if he hasn’t noticed the relapse, or has changed his mind about demanding silence.

Following the man in front of me, I end up before a small desk.

After giving my name, he hands me a temporary ID — a credit-card size piece of paper with my name and prisoner number — and a tiny Prisoner’s Handbook. I’m now aka 365820, a number which will be mine forever, dead or alive, as far as the penitentiary system is concerned. I’m the 365820th official inmate since Her Majesty’s colonial government established the post of Superintendent of Victoria Gaol in 1879. There has been 365819 prisoners before me according to record, not counting miscellaneous low-lifers disposed of without a number or fuss in the good old days. If I were to be jailed a hundred times before I die, I would be referred to by this same number during each internment.

With new ID in hand, I turn and notice John a few bodies behind me, looking distracted, probably shocked by the total lack of organisation.

Nobody is directing or coordinating, yet a latent force moves us on, unfolding the check-in process one step at a time.

Oh no, another strip search?

It turns out to be just as ceremonial as the performance at the courthouse basement, except that this booth is less concealed. People mill around while I push against the wall naked. Nobody looks. A strip search here arouses as much curiosity as pig slaughtering in an abattoir. After the search, I pick up a brown cotton uniform from a random heap, and a pair of colour matching plastic slippers. No fitting allowed. My pants turn out to be far too short. Oh well, who cares.

Hugging my brandname suit and shiny shoes, I continue with the flow.

This morning, I wore my smartest suit, matched by an honest looking tie. Judges tend to favour well-dressed citizens. No? I’d challenge doubters of this practical insight to wear flip-flops, torn jeans and muscle shirts to court if they ever get into trouble with the law. At the next stop, my designer clothes are shoved into a transparent garbage bag, to be jailed separately in a warehouse until 29 April 2014, my expected date of early discharge if I continue to behave exemplarily, as the wise judge noted. In this climate, they’ll be full of mushrooms by then.

Hey, was that it? Was that the much feared body search? No big deal!

There are deeply troubling tales about cavity searches in prison, supposedly to look for drugs and weapons. I can imagine smuggling drug through the back door. But what kind of weapon could one conceal in the rectum? A knife? A stick of fart-proof dynamite? Razor blades? Sounds like a load of crap but…the whole idea of imprisonment is to creep people out so they’d think twice before breaking the law unless they’re really hungry, or stupid, or unlucky. Perhaps the awful practice had expired? Perhaps…

The onslaught of wishful perhapses ends abruptly outside a room with a waiting bench. Beyond the half open door are two officers in yellowish lab-coats. An inmate is pulling his pants up as he comes out. He walks past us in unwarranted haste, but doesn’t seem to be limping.

One of the officer removes his latex gloves and tosses them into an overflowing bin. Is there blood on it? Can’t see from this distance. Damned ageing eyes.

One by one we enter.

Finally…

Me?

The nearer officer looks as if I were a hopeless idiot, wasting his time, staining his performance record. Maybe I am. I’m starting to understand wordless reprimands. I enter, trying to relax, as if entering my dentist’s office.

‘False teeth?’ Oh, is he really a dentist?

‘No, Sir.’

‘Open.’ He looks in, and notes something down. He’s in charge of the oral end of things. I watch, and wait.

Should I move on?

CSD officers are taciturn minimalists. When they really must say something, they go straight to the point, encrypted in jail slang. I wish there were orientation courses in Prisonspeak for novices so I don’t have to respond to half the questions with stupefied wide eyes.

The second officer standing next to a waist-high bin of used surgical gloves is waiting. Is he grinning?

Oh, me? Really? Right now?

He pulls on a fresh pair of gloves. Thankfully, the CSD doesn’t have an environmentally enlightened reuse scheme in this particular operation.

He goggles in wordless exasperation: What the fuck are you waiting for!

Hope I haven’t pissed him off. I walk over, knees trembling imperceptibly. Oh, by the way, I need to pee. What if…

‘Pull down. Bend over.’

Whatever you say buddy. I grit my teeth, close my eyes, and bend over. A sudden surge of sadness sweeps over me.

A dragonfly lands tentatively on lotus leaf, a glittering pearl of water twirls at the centre.

Was that just the warmup?

‘Okay.’

Is that it?

‘Thank you, Ah Sir, thank you,’ wholeheartedly.

Yippee-I-O! Trepidation has a wonderful aftertaste when it’s finally proven unwarranted.

After a full circle around Hell’s reception hall, we’re now duly serialised, changed into the colour of manure, and anally inspected. The amorphous flow is back to where it began. Brown zombies settle upon wooden benches. Social sediments, sludge. Fraternising promptly resumes.

I survey the surroundings for the first time since arrival.

Rows of long wooden benches occupy most of the room. Much of the toffee lacquer coating has come off, revealing patches of a darker brown underneath. Brown and grey are evidently CSD theme colours. Many a celebrated criminal must have sat on these benches for long indolent hours before their names are used to frighten misbehaving children.

John emerges from the examination room, looking irritated.

I’m tempted to greet him à la Lai Chi Kok — Hey! Dew Lay Lo Mo Hai! Thought I’d fucking bump into you here! Ha ha!

I smile instead. He wouldn’t get or appreciate the joke.

He plunks down next to me.

‘How dehumanising!’ he huffs through clenched teeth, face ashen.

Did he get it, like, really hard? Or merely roused by injured pride and suppressed irritation? John’s known for his impatient but meticulous style at work. I think his apparent irritability is due to an intellectual annoyance at his own compulsive sense of duty over stupefying and pointless corporate tasks. As always, life’s a civil war within oneself which only ends with death, or enlightenment. But being an avid reader of the Financial Times, he might have made enlightenment unnecessarily difficult, and possibly acquired a very different interpretation of humanness than mine.

Now that he’s mentioned the curious aspect of humanness, I can’t help wondering if the lowly anal inspector actually has one of the most dehumanising jobs conceivable. Does he ever talk about work at home? Honey, you should have seen this giant arsehole I poked at today, hairy too. Has he ever sniffed his finger absent-mindedly at the dining table? Who, him or John, was more dehumanised through their mutually abominated contact just now?

I turn to take a look at John and the happy cons around us, and realise that I’m over-analysing again.

To most people, a job’s a job. Mr. Officer has probably never considered the dehumanising side of his job, just like John may not realise that the corporate environment also erodes human qualities relentlessly, albeit more subtly.

‘Oh well,’ I shrug.

A philosophical deliberation of humanness now would be ludicrous. There are many other pressing priorities.

I usually consider killing time ridiculous and contradictory, especially when muttered by people who would do anything to live longer, in order to gain more idle time for recreational killing. But now that time has turned against me on judicial command, I’d like to have it killed, murdered, disposed of.

It’s starting to look dark outside. Must have sat here for half an hour, or much longer. There isn’t a clock anywhere. What does it matter though? Time is now a malleable unit of punishment, hidden from those serving it. Watching the heavy hands of a clock slogging through compressible space-time would only heighten frustration. Not needing to decide what and when next is actually quite relaxing, an urban privilege. Unfortunately, positive thinking can’t fool the sit bones. The big cushy muscles are succumbing to the hard cold surface of the antique bench.

Oh well, look around instead. Inmates are still bonding with multi-syllable cursing and laughter. They defeat the system by ignoring time, making it irrelevant. What if…

‘…365820…’ An officer announces from a list of numbers.

I spring to my feet and raise my hand: ‘That’s me!’

He rolls his eyes. What have I done wrong now?

‘Single file!’ he orders.

After sitting idly for so long, lining up to go somewhere seems exciting. Due to a mild cardiac condition, John will go to the hospital ward. I eye him goodbye as twenty or so of us file out like kindergarten children. No need to put hands on the shoulders in front.

Our guide communicates with command centre through a walkie talkie. Gates unlock and re-lock sequentially, making ugly bang bang noises. They must have been designed to sound threatening. A few minutes later, we arrive at a big dining hall. Haven’t eaten or drunk anything for hours, but not hungry or thirsty.

A guard hands each of us a plastic pint mug. Inside is a limp plastic spoon definitely unfit for tunnelling, a small piece of loosely-knit cotton towel, a tiny bar of soap, a green toothbrush (adding colour to the brown and grey world), a tube of toothpaste, and a tiny comb which I have no use for. I have not needed a comb since a miscommunication in Paris a decade ago. In a barber shop, or whatever fancy artistic label barber shops are given these days, I explained in what I thought was French that I wanted a slight trim — un peu s’il vous plaît. I then told the coiffeur that he looked like Picasso, and fell fast asleep as was my habit during haircuts. I woke up to see a close crew cut in the mirror. I looked bald, a bit like Picasso. After recovering from the shock days later, I started to appreciate the convenience of my new hairstyle, and how good it looked after a long flight.

It’s getting late in the evening. Dinner awaits us in floppy blue plastic plates spread out on long tables. I pick one up, curving it slightly so it wouldn’t droop and spill my rice. In my other hand is the mug and stuff.

I file on, apprehensive yet curious, wondering what my bedroom — sorry, cell — in Hong Kong’s worst hellhole is going to be like.

* * *

Hellhole Part II