Flower Lounge (3B) -- Hellhole (part two)

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

* * *

The dormitory building is a basketball court away from the main dining hall. We amble phlegmatically across at flip-flop pace, slippers hissing hypnotically against ground. Nobody lifts his feet. So un-Hongkong to appear not in a hurry. At the staircase, feet are lifted reluctantly, turning the hisses into grudging splat-splats. Two floors up, a duty guard behind a small wooden desk at the landing assigns cells from a roll sheet. Most cells are shared by two, but I don’t have a roommate.

After checking in, I turn right onto a long corridor.

On the left are vertical windows about fifteen centimetres wide, spaced no more than a meter apart. Visually, they appear big enough for a convict with a banana head and starvation-child-size body to squeeze through. If such a deformity manages to get through, he’ll free-fall onto the guarded playground below with a splat, or thud.

On the right are grottos partitioned by masonry walls. Metal grilles face the hallway. A zoo. In the centre of each grilled section is a gate, wide open right now. In the middle of high density Lai Chi Kok, no sign of outside life comes through the windows. I feel awfully lonely.

This looks a lot like jail, an old one, a bit stinky, but well-lit and reasonably clean, not the dark leaky dungeon Derek implanted in my imagination. He’s by far the most compulsive expectation manager I know. Whatever he looks at, from any angle, he sees disasters on behalf of his clients.

The entrance is just about my height. I stoop unnecessarily to enter, holding the mug and curled up dinner. Neighbouring cells are being filled noisily. A guard walks down the hallway, slamming the gates shut one by one.

Clank!

I’m finally behind bars, many bars, all alone.

An involuntary sigh. Sad, resigned, relieved.

Two grey fibreglass platform beds — four stubby legs and a flat top — flank the entrance. Between them, where I stand, is empty space approximately one bed wide. At the far end of the left bed is a squat toilet raised about a metre above floor level, more elevated than the one at the courtroom basement. A giant intermediate step bridges the elevation difference. A low partition provides nominal visual screening. Privacy no longer exists — that much is clear. Oh well, privacy is just a recent urban fuss anyway.

The giant public WC in the basement of the old Central wet market in my childhood was worse. I had to hold my breath to enter. Along one side of the public convenience, the floor was raised to accommodate an open channel running from one end of the defecation hall to the other. Low partitions even smaller than the one here were fixed perpendicular to the ditch, creating tiny longitudinal compartments, each fitted with a cast-iron door flap, hinges frozen open by rust and grime. The door flaps were covered with discoloured smears of boogers and phlegm and other objectionable whatnots better left unidentified.

Standing up in a stall, looking down the ditch, one could see fellow occupants on their haunches, facing this or that way. Underneath, a flotilla of turds undulated with the gentle current. To a boy, it was more fascinating than disgusting. Back then, they sailed straight out to beautiful Victoria Harbour, warm and fetid, rich in semi-decomposed organics and nutrients, for ‘marine treatment’. This toilet here in LCK, contemptuously designed for a single squat-alone user rather than linearly networked, triggers nostalgia.

Wedged against the other corner, opposite the toilet platform, is a tiny triangular fibreglass stand identical to the one at the courtroom cell. Like the beds, it’s also grey and bolted down. Between it and the toilet corner is a miniature sink fitted with a bronze faucet, loosely dangling like a stereotypical prison tap. I put my dinner and mug on the stand, and turn the tap on to test. It actually works, and doesn’t drip. Surprise, surprise.

I climb the step to use the toilet, straining lousy knees. Have not been drinking, but urinating more than normal since arrival. Nervous bladder, I guess. Would I dehydrate?

What a thunderous flush!

Installing a violently splashy toilet above the head of a bed confounds common sense, like everything else today. I come down from the slippery mini-stage gingerly, and inspect the dinner plate: A handful of cold peanuts, and a generous pile of cold mung-bean sprouts on cold rice. I sample the peanuts. Not bad. Not even soggy. Another surprise. This prison works better than it looks, indication of substance over style. I haven’t eaten since breakfast, but don’t feel hungry at all.

An apparition materialises on the other side of the grille. How long has he been watching?

Noticing that he’s got my attention, he slips a pile of bedding through the bars. I rush over to take them, then thank him with a big smile. He turns blankly and pushes his cart down the corridor. What’s the name of the hunchback of Notre-Dame? Quasimodo! Yes, Quasimodo. Picturing him playing an organ at midnight from a watchtower, a full moon in the background, I nearly smile for the first time today. Quasimodo is followed by an inmate pushing a water cart. I stick my mug out eagerly. Not feeling thirsty, but dehydration is a rational concern.

I inspect the pile: Six grey military blankets — coarse, impregnated with dust, heavy with moisture; a thin pillow the size of a large dictionary, about three centimetres thick when not loaded; two baby blue bedsheets and, rolled up inconspicuously between them, a teeny cigar of toilet paper. I carefully unroll it, expecting a nasty surprise, and get one: Eight squares of gossamer tissues, slightly damp from atmospheric moisture. Shit. You call this toilet paper? I honestly am not fastidious but — but — but — you call this toilet paper? It definitely won’t withstand nominal assertion. I can tell that folding it after the initial wipe would result in the layers slipping and sliding over the content while one or more fingers go through. I have a hyperactive digestive tract with short retention time and high rejection rates. Eight squares of this simply won’t do.

Eight!

I’m deeply worried. Brown uniform is not an acceptable solution.

A guard strolls past at this distressing juncture.

‘Excuse me, Ah Sir,’ I stop him spontaneously. In desperation, I’ve forgotten my tentative jail manners. He looks at me, expressionless.

‘Is it possible to get more?’ I raise the translucent roll, smiling meekly, imploring.

He pauses. Then pauses. Then enunciates impassively: ‘Everyone eight squares. You give that a good thought, huh?’ then walks on.

How zen. So I give the matter a good thought. Mind over faecal matter.

I run through contingencies and consequences, and panic. It’s going to be a disaster. The only feasible solution — not an easy one — is abstinence. Luckily, I haven’t eaten all day. Mass balance is on my side. But for how long?

Loudspeakers in the corridor erupts into the evening radio show at rattling decibel, startling me out of my toilet paper trepidation, nearly scaring the shit out of me. People with only eight squares a day better stay very calm. Cigarette smoke fills the air to a point which chokes. If the building is equipped with smoke detectors, they must have been set to a dangerously tolerant level. What would happen if a fire broke out?

Neighbouring partiers raise their voices to chat above the radio. Such a happy prison. Is this a ‘only in Hong Kong’ thing? We love noise under all imaginable and unimaginable situations. I doubt that a Finnish slammer would be this boisterous on a New Year’s Eve, even upon news of a general pardon.

I stack five blankets, each folded once, for mattress, leaving only one to cover for warmth, then lie down. They feel prickly, stiff, and damp through my cotton uniform. Even with ten layers of blankets, the bed is too hard, and I normally like a firm mattress.

Stop whining…it’s only reasonable that prison beds are super hard.

The blistered ceiling looks like the inside lining of a monster stomach, or the mottled surface of a piece of slippery blue cheese; I’m now one of the resident bacteria.

The new reality starts flickering against a numbed awareness — I’m in jail, I really am.

So glad to be alone right now, yet also intensely lonely. The party noise makes loneliness more unbearable, heightening a freezing sense of isolation. I seem to be the only unhappy inmate in Hong Kong’s premier hellhole.

Is it me? Or them?

My thoughts drift to Satu and Comrade Xiaoping, our eight-year-old daughter who doesn’t yet know what has happened. We had discussed letting her know, in case this happened, but decided to postpone it because nah, this won’t happen. Why not wait another year or so, when she would be definitely old enough to understand the full story? We didn’t mind letting her know, but couldn’t figure out how to convey the truth without making her prematurely cynical. Legal cynicism age in our family is twelve.

Her sister Claire is studying in Canada, undoubtedly mature enough to understand the volatilities in life. We have told her everything from the onset, making her intensely worried, giving her an overnight bald spot. Now that…

Stop! Stop this melodrama and self-pity!

Think positive. Look at the bright side. There has to be one. Find it! Look how happy others are!

I’m normally quite good at rationalising miseries and regrets. This is the time to put my denialist talents to practical use.

Many great guys had done time in jail: Socrates, Jesus, Galileo, Sima Qian, Gandhi, Mandela, and my timelessly favourite poets Li Bai, Su Dong Po…The list goes on. That’s how the world is. Human justice has always been unfair. Fancy popes go straight to Heaven, led by trumpeting angles, after having barbecued women and scientists and heretics alive. Great men of modern terror — Bush and Cheney and their chums — will never end up behind bars, so, here you go.

Placing myself in the ranks of Galileo and Sima Qian doesn’t seem to do the trick though.

Their misfortune doesn’t make me feel better. It reinforces a sense of injustice instead, and adds weight to the mood. I need hope, not anger or despair. I’m a realist, am I not? Take the human world as it is, and deal with it.

Let’s try again.

Okay, the world’s ridiculous, and life’s absurd. What else is new? Always has been, always will be. Isn’t it more colourful that way? I’ve always known that…

That doesn’t work either.

Human absurdity is amusing only when it doesn’t affect me. Now that I’m a victim, it’s no longer funny. I sigh audibly. No one can hear me anyway, even if I scream. Sighing feels good.

All kinds of what-ifs bubble in my head. Don’t normally do what-ifs. They are counter-productive and pointless. But this ain’t normal time.

No. No what-ifs either. Don’t have the energy for that.

My eyes are really tired. I take my glasses off and put them under the bed lest I step on them accidentally. Won’t hurt to be extra careful. Breaking them will no doubt be a hassle. The engineer in me is still present. Without glasses, the ceiling looks cleaner and smoother. Most of the time, we actually have no need for clear vision.

Wait, the radio’s off! When did that happen?

I must have blocked out the racket completely, or dozed off, which I feel sure I hadn’t. Dozing off happens unknowingly all the time, but I have never come out of a nap without transition. Weird. Another chunk of time lost. Yet another eternally insignificant puzzle.

I regard myself quite easy going when it comes to time, never blame it for making lousy moments longer than pleasant ones, or moan about having too much or too little of it. I treat time like fish treat water — ignore and let pass as I involuntarily move through. But now that someone is trying to punish me by confiscating my time, it suddenly comes into a different focus. Perhaps I should counter by savouring every moment in the coming years, turning penalty into reward? Yeah, sure, how?

A guard strolls past without looking this way. A fish making clockwise rounds in a clockless aquarium.

I feel like reminding him to turn the light off. Just kidding. It has been dimmed while I blacked out, but still bright enough to read. In order for the government to keep us watched 24/7, we must be sufficiently illuminated at all time. As a result, there’s no darkness in jail — just like in Heaven.

Light doesn’t bother me when I sleep. I have eyelids. But right now, they won’t close.

I internalise my blank stare at the brain. Random thoughts flutter like loose pages from a notebook flying in the wind. Wish I had my own notebook to jot down these snap shots. Maybe I can piece them together one day, to keep the remains of my day pointlessly occupied…

This is so unexpected, so far off the mark, so ridiculous…Admit it, I’ve been naive, embarrassingly so. How could my expectation be so ridiculously off the mark?

I’m an engineer, a professionally conditioned realist, sociologically and philosophically unromantic. I have no problem seeing that the justice industry is run by bored mortals artificially elevated and isolated from the real world, and that they have issues and weaknesses like the rest of us — probably more so — as exclusivity tends to breed delusions. Under their aura and wigs, judges are very ordinary men and women with mood, prejudice, ego, vanity, ego again, boredom, family problems, and alcohol. But they can’t complain about their hugely prestigious but tedious job because a judge bitching about how stupid and boring it is to be a judge just isn’t right. So some drink. The magistrate who ordered this room for me is infamously injudicious with alcohol, for example.

Neither am I surprised that lofty legal principles such as the benefit of the doubt; proof of motives; actus reus and mens rea and other italicised law words are in reality latinised bullshit, at least partially, and that justice is in essence arbitrary. Yet, though fully vaccinated with pragmatic cynicism, I still believed in a bottomline rationality. Without fundamental consensus, I figured, nothing would work in the human world. No amount of words can fully define an agreement. All social contracts and aspirations — freedom, justice, commerce, civility, dialogues, negotiations…would break down. Civilisation would breakdown. Human society would breakdown. The consequence is too serious to contemplate. Plus I also believed simple logic — basic and instinctual logic — to be universal, at least among well educated people such as magistrates. Simple logic tells me that a confessed liar cannot possibly be credible just because he has freely admitted to having lied repeatedly under oath, until now.

This is where it went wrong.

Simple logic had failed. My simple assumption is faulty, or dated. Evidently, there is no longer a common bottomline on what is clearly reasonable.

Cold floodlight from outside pours in through the windows, casting slender rectangular stripes on the floor, turning the hallway into a giant barcode. A gaoler stomps through it every ten minutes or so. At the end of the corridor, a device registers his dutiful arrival with a piercing beep. I don’t mind. I ain’t sleeping yet. But what about other slumbering criminals?

So Hong Kong. Most publicly beeping devices are set to maximum volume to advertise their technological and caring presence. Subway turnstiles go berserk to signal admission or rejection. Traffic lights make earsplitting beeps to warn the blind and damage hearing. Escalators broadcast loopily that users must hold the handrail tight — TIGHT! TIGHT! VERY VERY TIGHT! — giving the impression that escalator rides are a dangerous urban adventure for daredevils only. One tiny slip, and you’ll be minced meat. Such a treacherous place. No wonder we’re all crazy.

Yawn. Enough rambling. Sleep.

But the eyes won’t stay shut. The lids spring open involuntarily. Maybe they’ve shrunk. Insomnia, an unfamiliar experience, is irritating. The insomniac mind is full of negative thoughts, torturing with a sizzling sense of injustice.

Sweet dreams are a myth. Have never experienced a ‘sweet and peaceful dream’, and don’t believe anyone has. Not asking for a sweet dream right now though, just a dream which takes me to a different world, at least a different situation…

Suddenly, I’m seized by a good idea, warmed by intense hatred. My eyes narrow down to a slit. The tongue tastes bittersweet. Come to think of it, I haven’t brushed my teeth yet, have I?

With narrowed eyes and shallow breath, I see them lining up before me, down below, waiting for my verdicts with begging eyes.

First in line are the ICAC agents.

‘You twisted evidence and coached the witness to keep your in-trays occupied, employment contracts renewable, and power expanded. With a light and happy heart, I hereby sentence you to a painful death. Next!’

Oh dear, that sleazy goof of a prosecutor, looking like a cheap counterfeit Harry Potter in his robe.

‘You don’t care a smidgen about justice, and are awkwardly theatrical. Remember that time when you raised your hands sky high to appeal to His Honour not to grant us bail? You compared John and I to Al Pacino in Godfather III. That was so stupid. Nobody, including the judge, I’m sure, including those who had watched the movie multiple times, got your point. What was your point anyway? Never mind. Enough said. Just go die!’

Finally, hey, Dew Lay Lo Mo Hai — You! Your Fucking Honour! Kneel!

‘Look at me in the eyes, you wigged creep! You called us exemplary citizens but sentenced us to jail. What kind of arsehole would send exemplary citizens to jail, huh? You said we had not done anything to benefit ourselves, so where’s your proof of motives? What about the benefit of the doubt? Christ, why am I wasting my time. I hereby sentence you to a painful and gruesome execution. Guards, Devils, take him away! May God have mercy upon your soul. Amen.’

No, wait, not death, quite the opposite.

Ha, I have a better idea.

With pitch dark pleasure, I hereby condemn you all to live exceedingly long lives, on and on and on, until your last tooth falls off when chewing water, then live some more. May you spend the last decades in a cheap hospice, stinking from oozy bedsores, mouldering under soaked nappies. Let your children find out how repulsive you truly are. It’s Christmas again, hear the recurrent electronic carols in the hallway? The kids are here for their five-minute annual visit, standing two metres away, holding their breath. Finally, you turn a hundred and ten, staying awake night after night in cold wet beds, skin chafed raw by rough blankets covered with pus stains. Once you doze off, vengeful spectres of innocent victims whom you had framed, entrapped, misguided, and ruined would swarm your nightmares. Yahoo! Your disused conscience will be scourged by regrets in terminal delirium, which would feel like eternity. Clingy vindictive ghosts will stop you from escaping into a next life.

Ah! That feels good. Basking in the joy of revenge, I nearly smile.

The last sporadic whispers in neighbouring cells have turned into snores. Heartfelt cursing is indeed therapeutic. But after a moment of calm, a second round of outburst has arrived. I’ve added fresh charcoals to the fire. Negative energy was temporarily smothered, not extinguished. The firestorm is building up pressure, ready to flare anew. My usual sense of detachment has collapsed, or imploded, smouldering deep down, emitting toxins.

I___hate___this___world !

Darkness has engulfed everything, even with prison lighting. My eyes sting with tiredness, but still won’t close. I stare hard at nothing.

Have I always had this boiling venom in me, waiting for a justifiable moment to erupt?

The night guard drags his heavy boots down the corridor. Sounds like he’s hauling a chained metal ball.

Beep!

Another fifteen minutes gone. Only a million or so more to go, assuming that I behave, something which cannot be taken for granted. But the young guard will have to count many more minutes before reaching his distant promise of a government pension.

A creepy wail gives me a start.

WTF! A baby? In here? A baby right in this very cell?

Cold sweat is real, not metaphorical. I’m wide awake, saturated with adrenalin, simultaneously hyper alert and giddily confused.

I reflexively reach under the bed for my glasses.

What if a tiny icy hand grips my wrist?

Luckily, my glasses are right there.

Put them on and look around. Nothing strange. That’s strange, given that everything here’s kind of strange.

Turn over to hang my head over the edge of the bed to peek underneath.

Stale greyness. A faint stink, but no fluorescent green eyes.

Thank all gods and the relevant authority for keeping the light on. Such a great idea.

Here it goes again!

Goddamned cats. Goddamned fucking creepy cats!

Have not heard the painful sound of feline love for decades. It was once common in late spring nights. Don’t know what made them disappear. Perhaps like humans, they have given up on bothersome love life except in this forsaken fringe of our sterile world? Or was that the yowling of wretched spirits trapped in this hellhole?

As I drift into macabre irrelevance, seething rage momentarily forgotten, a loud whisper comes from next door: ‘See Hing! Hey, See Hing!’ Convicts address each other See Hing, literally senior brother in a trade or kung fu club.

He sounds urgent, but, sorry bro, can’t deal with urgency right this moment, not even my own.

Slow the breathing, pretend to be sound asleep. Prison isn’t the place to be friendly or curious. That much street sense I do have. In any event, I’m not in a position to do anything for myself, much less a stranger. Thankfully, there’s a solid thick wall between us.

The stomach tenses. A burp got stuck behind the sternum.

Snoring and caterwauling continue intermittently in the background, building up disturbing energy, setting the stage for something big and nasty to happen.

‘Hey! See Hing!’ Now shouting, no longer hissing, voice packed with menace. Don’t fuck with me, man. I know the fucking trick.

He bangs the wall between us real hard, probably with both fists, sending a tremor through the grotto, and me. A tidal wave of goosebumps sweeps my back. What a busy day for my biology, one brutal stimulus after another. Have never checked blood pressure. It’d be interesting to take a reading right now.

Calm down. I’m safely behind thick concrete and plenty of steel bars. What can he do?

The snoring in neighbouring cells dies down. Am I pretending to be the only one sound asleep? Am I insulting him by ignoring? What if I bump into him first thing tomorrow, as we leave for breakfast? Hey, arsehole, you ignored me last night, didn’t fucking you? I’m not here to make enemies, am I? Gangsters hate being snubbed. Who doesn’t? Just check out what his urgency is, be very nice and honestly helpless, then sleep.

‘Everything okay?’ With exaggerated bleariness.

‘Got a fag, See Hing? Pass me one.’

We can’t see each other, but hands can go through the bars and meet halfway if I had a cigarette to pass him. Can’t imagine anyone this addicted to tobacco, though I no longer trust my imagination.

‘Sorry, don’t smoke.’

‘C’mon man…’ His tone turns unquestionably vicious. It’s an unequivocal I’ll fucking kill you if you lied.

‘Seriously, I don’t.’ Though I wish I did right now. It’d be a pleasure to give him one, or two, even the whole pack. Damn. Why did I quit? I take a deep breath. The stuck burp is turning acidic. I need a cigarette. An opium pipe would be even better.

He kicks the wall hard, really hard. What if he breaks some toes and imputes the damage to me?

‘What’s the matter?’

It’s the guard! It’s the guard! Hallelujah! Blessed is the one who invented jail guards!

He sounds oddly gentle and understanding, cooing rather than commanding, not at all jail-guard like, at least not the kind Stephen King describes.

Something doesn’t sound right. What if they actually know each other, and are in this together, trying to use my failure to offer up a cigarette as an excuse to get me into some unthinkably sadistic trouble? My imagination is evidently still alive, weary and peculiar.

The cats reach a crescendo. Why don’t they just shut up and do it?

‘Gotta fag, Ah Sir?’

‘No. Sleep now.’ Ah Sir’s voice remains nice, but firm.

‘Can you ask him?’ Sensing his finger pointing my way, I cringe.

‘He’s clean. No bullshit. Go sleep now.’ The guard walks away at his hallmark pace.

See Hing quiets down. Am I clean? I showered this morning. But now that I have had this blanket on my body all night…

He screams again, this time not at me. ‘Go get a fucking smoke Dew Lay Lo Mo Hai! Do you fucking hear?’

I prick my ears.

‘What the fuck man! Where the fuck do you expect me to get a fag now?’ His cellmate’s feeble reply is patently reasonable. Did they know each other before tonight?

He who needs to smoke right this very instant repeats his unreasonable demand hoarsely.

His cellmate repeats his reasonable protest emphatically: ‘Where the fuck do you expect me to get a fag from man!’ How could anyone not agree with that plain fact?

Can cigarettes be this addictive? What’s his brand, I wonder.

‘Go get a fucking cigarette ah! Dew Lay Lo Mo Hai!’ A broken gramophone.

Then, a fight, or a beating.

Bang! Phew! Splat! Bang bang!

Life could be worse. I could have been assigned his cellmate.

The guard saunters back, still hauling invisible ball and chain. He has seen this shit before, no doubt.

‘Why are you making life hell for yourself and others?’ So unperturbed, nearly philosophical, though palpably bored.

No answer. Can’t come up with a sensible answer on his behalf either. All this fuss for a cigarette?

Abruptly, to my very huge surprise, banging resumes, right before the jail guard who is presumably watching with folded arms.

I stiff up under the blanket, motionless, eyes squeezed tightly shut, grimacing in disbelief.

What kind of an undisciplined disciplinary institution is this?

As I worry about security and safety in this institution, more guards show up. Don’t know how many. The silence tells me there are more than one. Unlike the duty officer, their steps are light, purposeful, and ominous.

Without a word, the gate is opened.

Without a word, they leave.

Quietness resumes, punctuated by caterwauling, humans snoring, and the roaring of my internal furnace stoked up afresh by volatile adrenalin and dark energy.

* * *

Next episode

Heart over Mind

The Heart Sutra isn’t about a nosy deity perverting the course of injustice by giving bad judges giant bloody tumours, or masterminding supernatural jailbreaks in response to diligent incantations. But it does offer deliverance from the jaws of adversity.