Flower Lounge (5B) -- Into the Cuckoo's Nest (part two)

Twice a day, news from the admin office arrives like wartime dispatches from the front, each summoning a fresh batch of inmates to the office for Guo Gai instructions, creating a spike of excitement. Polygamist has been waiting much longer than average for his transfer. His number fails to show up again.

‘Have they forgotten me?’ he mumbles, looking disappointed.

Nobody likes to be left out, not even when queuing to be locked away somewhere else. I give an innocent shrug. He isn’t expecting an answer from me anyway. I turn to the Staring Man for inspiration, assuming that he’s more experienced in these things.

Nope, not shifting at all.

Hey, man, it’s been hours, take a break!

While Polygamist leaves the table to query the duty officer about his vanishing status, shower order comes. He joins the line directly from the jail guard’s desk. It would be awkward for me to go join him, plus I’m getting tired of bugging someone who knows everything much better than I do. I wish to explore a little on my own, so I join the line at the tail end.

The shower hall is in a different building. As we file out, I notice many shimmering heads under the sun. Instead of bringing the bottle, they squirt shampoo onto their heads. How pragmatic. Suddenly, an old crack about picking up soap in prison pops up to spoil the relaxing moment. What if it’s true? True or not, better not drop it.

The shower hall is chaotic like the rest of LCK, and severely flooded.

After stripping at the door like everyone else, I stuff my uniform into one of many damp pigeon holes, then venture inside the big splashy room, treading in ankle-deep sudsy water, surrounded by tattoos and decapitated showers. I don’t have a strong aversion to tattoos, merely regard them a pointless embellishment which will almost certainly be regretted one day. Why mark the body with anything that can’t be updated or replaced? If your nose is gigantic and crooked, you can at least blame your parents for genetic negligence. When your tattoo expires, you have only yourself to blame. With age, roses wilt, supermen droop, butterflies shrivel, and wheels of life collapse. The same old pattern from younger days, out of fashion long ago, turning weary, wrinkly, broken, odd, faded, folded over, will hang on until reincarnation, or cremation.

But right now, being naked without a tattoo feels really naked. Wish I had a rub-on. Entwined dragons would fit in nicely. What about a poster from the Water Supplies Department at the back? A stainless-steel tap yielding a giant drop of crystalline H2O emphatically captioned in font size fifty Times Roman: Conserve Water!

Water water everywhere, free-flowing, dripping, gurgling.

A vital natural resource is being wasted with criminal disregard. A sick expression of freedom, a nobody-gives-a-damn kind of freedom, a freedom pushed to the limit just because not much else is allowed. Having worked with water and sewage most of my professional life, I have developed a reflexive guilt about wasting water.

I pick a weak stream trickling from one of the headless ‘showers’ to minimise direct personal responsibility for this wastage. Obviously, the shower heads have been removed so tough guys can’t smash each other’s head with them. My common sense is returning slowly, adjusting to the new environment.

Now, where should I put my soap. There isn’t a holder anywhere, not even a chink in the wall. The floor is three inches under water. In the mouth? What if I swallow by accident? The thought makes me want to smile, but I suppress it. Don’t wish to be seen smiling to myself. Not here, not now.

After soaping thoroughly, I clamp the bar gently between my teeth when rinsing off. I then rewrap it with the soaked wrapper, and gargle the taste off. Most inmates have a soapbox held between knees or under their armpits. How I want one of those. Have never desired so many basic implements so badly: A soap box, notebooks, pen, tissues! and a plastic bag to carry them in.

After shower, I pick a ‘fresh’ pair of damp underwear from a huge pile on a long table at the front door. Drying with the low density towelette is comically futile. I put my uniform — third degree wet — back on, then wait outside for someone to herd us, Party 4B, back to Fan Tong.

He still hasn’t said a word!

All morning, Staring Man listens to Polygamist and I talk. Every now and then, I flash him a friendly grin out of stubborn curiosity, no longer expecting any response. His rugged features is tightly wrapped with barely enough skin; his rolling cheekbones shine with tension. At the far end of deep sockets, trapped eyes stare out absentmindedly, unblinking, watching me, watching the world stage dramas in which he can’t participate. His right fore and middle fingers are starkly absent. Might have been ground up by some nasty machine at work. If they were, I wonder how much was he compensated. Were they more, or less, than prime beef on a per unit weight basis? They might have been chopped off by some nasty humans too, then got eaten by a dog nearby, or flushed down a public toilet by the person who removed them, now buried in the landfill, going through anaerobic decomposition. Too many possibilities. Whatever happened, two fingers are presently at large somewhere, not in jail with him as sentenced.

Really really want to interview him. Hey, buddy, you’re missing a few fingers, you know. Tell me what happened.

Just a thought, of course. Him and I don’t do communication. I give him another smile instead. Blank. Boo.

By late morning. A fourth See Hing joins our table. He looks sad as hell, and is very quiet, though not waxy quiet like the eight-fingered-man. Everyone except you-know-who greets with eyes. When he seems settled enough, I venture the same ice-breaker: ‘So, uh, what you in for?’

Once upon a time, he explains with surprising readiness, he smuggled a few cartons of cigarettes from the mainland.

To balance conflicting concerns over revenue and citizenry health, the Government imposes substantially higher duties on tobacco than the mainland. Invariably, an unreasonable gap in cross-border tariffs creates smuggling opportunities, and this guy grabbed it. I’ll call him Marlboro in my diary.

Appearing to be in his late thirties, taciturn Marlboro has a big lump of sadness stuck in his throat. Though friendly, it takes skill and patience to extract words from him. Fortunately, I sense that See Hings don’t mind talking about their crime if approached sensitively. Perhaps talking about it offloads something from the chest. I might be an exception. Not because I’m ashamed of my criminal record. I simply find it bland and dumb, boring. No sex or violence; no clever planning; no creative execution; no social statements. To adequately reciprocate, I repackage it slightly to make it more lively, and avoid sounding like a guilty child — it wasn’t me! Insistence on innocence seems dubious in here. Instead, I try to sound, like, you know, yeah, of course, no big deal, man.

After a brief exchange of background stories, silence resumed. Silence doesn’t normally bother me, but I’m feeling high from sleeplessness, and curious about my new acquaintances. I need to talk, to stay engaged and awake. In passing, I mention my toilet paper concerns tongue-in-cheek to Marlboro.

He retrieves half a pack of Tempo from his Santa bag: ‘Here.’

‘Wow. Uh. Wow. Okay. Thanks. I’ll pay you back.’

‘No need.’

Once again, I’m touched by generosity.

Be careful!

This is a jail for Chrissakes! You don’t know who they are, and what they want from you.

It’s that small-minded creep, the Guardian Angel, whispering toxins again. It may be right, but is becoming irritating.

Big deal, I snap mentally. I’ve got nothing now, not even a respectable piece of butt wipe. I have nothing to lose, except the last vestige of trust in people, something which you, Winged One, have absolutely no idea. So, fluff off!

Oh dear, that was profane. I wonder what the consequence might be.

Lunch is light, a modest raisin bun and medium undercooked soya bean slop. That’s two days in a row. Evidently, they do feed gruel to prisoners. Everyone lines up, mug in hand, to receive gruel ladled from a red plastic bucket, just like in the movies.

After lunch, as I sit in forced indolence, grudgingly digesting loblolly, an officer hollers: ‘365820, Bai Shan!’

Bai Shan? Grave sweeping? WTF!

‘You’ve got visitor,’ Marlboro translates.

My stomach instantly stops squishing. A wave of goosebumps propagates down my back.

Satu and Fai, my best friend and business partner, sit on the other side of thick glass. I have some interests in a couple of small businesses with good friends, ventures which I had to declare in every board meeting when working for big corporations. I’ve always felt lucky and proud that we have together proven the maxim ‘the best way to ruin a friendship is by going into business together’ utter nonsense.

They seem more weary than curious in their first visit to a jailing institution. We talk through black plastic phones which look blind and sterile without a rotary dial. Fai keeps up an encouraging smile while Satu and I talk. During the long trial, I had mused to him that a couple of months in prison would actually be an interesting experience. He’s an expert in my hallmark facetiousness, and rolled his eyes in response, as usual. Fine, I’ve jinxed it big time, but I said a couple of months max, nowhere near thirty-nine months. There must have been a huge mistake in hoodoo conversion.

‘How’re you?’

‘Fine. You?’

That isn’t how we normally talk.

‘How’s Comrade Xiaoping?’

‘She’s fine. I told her you left for a work camp for your old company. I hid your briefcase. She was upset that you didn’t say goodbye. I explained it was an emergency.’

‘Can’t keep it from her forever.’

‘I know. Let’s see how the appeal goes first.’

Ah, yes, the appeal. I’ve forgotten that completely. Didn’t I analyse the follies of false hope last night? Keep the head down to focus on the situation minute by minute. No expectations. Forget the appeal. To maintain hope right now, I must first purge all hope.

‘Sure.’ Unenthusiastic, but not pessimistic.

I show off my uniform, and raise my feet to show her the colour matching slippers. ‘How about that?’

Okay, not funny. She cries instead. So I cry too.

They have brought a bunch of permissible supplies, all according to specs, and conveniently available in nearby stores. Like the legal and penal bureaus, and the convicts, these stores depend on the crime rate for prosperity.

‘Will take a day or two before you get them,’ Fai adds. ‘They have to be inspected and marked first.’

‘Thanks. Did you get tissues?’

‘Ten packs.’

‘Ten? Great! Thanks!’ Soon, there’ll be no need to give the matter a good thought as suggested.

‘Time’s up,’ an officer taps me on the shoulder.

‘Okay, Ah Sir.’

She’s crying again.

‘Bye. See you next time,’ I wave.

Outside the visiting centre, while waiting to be escorted back to Fan Tong, I bump into John. He’s been crying too. His wife also just visited.

‘How was last night?’ I enquire. Given his temperament and language barrier, I suspect that he’ll do his damnedest to make life tougher than necessary for himself.

‘I thought the hospital ward would be luxury, but it’s full of coughing and spitting addicts, screaming and crying all night. I didn’t sleep at all.’

‘Neither did I.’

I had one neighbouring addict. He had a roomful. Poor guy.

Dinner is sumptuous compared to lunch: rice, slushy veggies, a stringently lemony citrus which resembles an orange, undoubtedly rich in Vitamin C.

Prison routine is similar to my retirement schedule at home — early dinner, early bed. It must be barely seven when we’re herded back to the multicellular dorm. Not having a clock doesn’t bother me. I haven’t worn a wrist watch since the late 1990s, and have rediscovered my biological clock before handphones became part of the biology. I can usually tell time to plus or minus fifteen minutes, give or take another fifteen minutes.

Business is good today. Hong Kong is becoming a crime capital. LCK is approaching full occupancy, overflowing with convicts. Many cells have been converted to triple rooms with an extra bed slotted between the two bolted-down ones, turning the cells into one giant bed occupying every inch of floor space but for the toilet and sink area.

I look for Polygamist but can’t see him anywhere. Maybe he’s had enough of me?

Marlboro, myself, and a bespectacled young man end up sharing a room. We park our identical slippers at the gate, then climb onto bed. Marlboro takes the far side below the elevated toilet. Obviously, he doesn’t mind, or is being super courteous, which is entirely possible. I slide opportunistically to the opposite side. The young man crawls into the middle, mumbling something which sounds like ‘Well, well, well. Nice!’ Maybe he’s being sarcastic. But he seems relaxed and comfortable right away. Hey, jail can’t be that bad if so many regulars feel at home here, I tell myself. He looks in his late twenties, friendly and talkative, phlegmatic and neurotic at the same time. Half his teeth are missing, making him look more mature, and guilty. Did he lose them in a fight? He doesn’t look the warrior type though. Maybe he’s a practice punching bag for fellow gangsters?

As I stealthily observe him, he stretches out his feet towards mine.

OMG, they — his feet — are sloughing off big time before my tired old eyes. This can’t be true, but is true, I am sharing a bed with him!

I discretely back away, pushing tight against the cool damp wall.

His feet are chalky white, fluffy and powdery as if made of loose dust, the raw material with which God manufactured Adam. Within minutes, he has deposited a film of snowy human powder onto his blanket. If Marlboro is bothered, he’s not showing it. I’m ostensibly indifferent as well. The courtesy prisoners afford each other is unimaginable to the polite world outside.

Well, his feet are here to stay. They are now a central component of objective reality. The only sensible option is acceptance. Fortunately, no strange odour detected so far. Life could have been worse, as always.

We chat, hopping between a wide range of issues — from the petty current Chief Executive of government to arbitrary justice, something we all have insights into. If Quasimodo would kindly serve beer and chips, and the young man’s decomposing feet were collected inside socks and shoes, tugged under a table, this could indeed be an enjoyable Flower Lounge soirée.

My interlocutors are not sophisticated by the superficial standards of sophisticated folks. But they are genuine, and refreshingly full of common sense. They can be bafflingly uninformed about some trivial aspects at the social dead end where I once ensconced myself, but tremendously insightful in other areas. They’re street smart, healthily cynical (or realistic, depending how cynical or realistic you are), generally tolerant and accepting without fuss. The streets keep people on their mettle more ruthlessly than the bourgeois matrix does. For some reason, I don’t think it’s appropriate to ask Flaky Feet what he’s in for, so I won’t.

Tiredness sinks in like a heart attack. I haven’t slept for nearly forty hours.

I crawl under the blanket, too tired to mumble goodnight. The light stays on — it’s always on. My eyelids crash down. A pair of feet is disintegrating in semi-darkness. There’s a silent explosion nearby. A cloud of pulverised skin propagates towards my face. Pressure wave. Hope it’s not contagious.

I wake from a dreamless sleep to the sound of birds. Even in the slammer, daybreak is tranquil. Flaky is sleeping like a deformed baby, a second-generation victim of nuclear holocaust, snoring gently, blowing sweet viscous bubbles, momentarily freed from a crumbling existence.

His glasses! He sleeps with his glasses on! I nearly scream over nothing.

Better keep an open mind about normality from now on, I make another mental note. Normal is merely an accepted collection of all the odd things I’m accustomed to. What’s the big deal about sleeping with one’s glasses on, huh?

Day Three has begun. I stretch my back, then reach down for my slippers near the entrance. Oh, there’re three identical pairs underneath, six shoes, six feet, fluffy or not. Oh well, I pick two, put them on at the other end of bed, then climb the toilet, getting ready for more imprisonment.

There’s a conspicuously wretched guy today at the table across the aisle, behind the one which rejected me yesterday. He’s been staring at the floor all morning, nearly motionless. Reality has become even stranger than usual. I struggle not to stare at him staring at nothing, while my table-mate stares at me. Them two should be introduced to each other. Unfortunately, both are preoccupied at the moment.

After lunch, us new admissions are sent to take Dead Beam (X-Ray) at the Fingerprint Room (Admin Office). Nearly everything is called something else. I’m an alien in a strange country with an arcane language.

To foreign inmates such as John, the opposite is true. Everything concerning them is distilled down to two letters — ON — barked out with Cantonese pungency — Oh-Ann! Polygamist and Marlboro cannot tell me what ON stands for. They only know it represents everything non-Chinese under the sun, inside a Hong Kong jail. Could it be the acronym for Other Nationals? Besides the usual suspects who make up Hong Kong’s cosmopolitan demography, there’s an inordinately high proportion of Latin Americans and Africans in LCK’s ON population.

My package arrives.

I find Christmas carols cheesy, so am devastated to notice Jingle Bells jingling against my will in the head.

At the front gate, an officer inserts my newly gifted chattels through the bars. Right next to him, crumbled up on the floor, is an empty plastic bag, obviously without further purpose in life. I beg him for it. He hesitates briefly — he actually hesitates over a useless plastic bag for a good ten seconds! — before giving it to me. Truly grateful nonetheless.

Thank you thank you! Hmm Goy Hmm Goy, Ah Sir!

Back at Table 33.

Ha! Ten packs of pocket size Tempos — Mwah! Two blue capped yellowish ballpoint pens. I know this kind from younger days. Not a small miracle that the indisputably ugly design has actually survived the decades. They look lovely now. Four notebooks. Yahoo! Turn up that jingle bell. An electric shaver. I never use them. I much prefer razor blades but, yeah, I’m not in a hotel. Batteries, mosquito repellant stickers, one proper face towel, and, and, and, a soap box! My own soap box!

I insist that Marlboro takes a full pack of tissues. With nine left, I still need to conserve. The little bar of soap goes into its glossy new home which snaps shut with a sweet audible click. I open and close it a few times — click! click! click!

Everything’s engraved or written with a permanent marker 365820, property of inmate 365820 — c’est moi, Monsieur!

The notebooks conjure up childhood memories. Cheap but functional things were popular back then. I pick one up for closer examination. It’s brandname Gambol is by far the most prominent feature on the pastel beige semi-glossy cover. Right below it is the word NOTEBOOK in capitals to ensure proper understanding of the designed function of this paper article. Underneath is a bold declaration: Gambol notebooks, made with future technology, for tomorrow’s most outstanding achievers. It’s obviously not for me then. I’m too old to be an outstanding achiever tomorrow. Who cares. I have never possessed anything made with technologies which don’t yet exist — imagine the privilege and excitement. I sniff it to savour the scent of future. Smells like paper. I immediately set to write, mostly in English, hoping in vain that the foreign language would afford me some privacy.

A few inmates drop by to watch behind my shoulders, creating an aura of curious body heat.

‘You write in English?’

‘Yeah, just practising.’

‘Cool.’

I jot down everything I can recollect — observations, dialogues, reflections, commentaries, inspirations, speculations, delusions. Writing in longhand is hard on my keyboard-evolved fingers, but I persevere. All muscles are trainable. Evolution can be reversed by necessity.

A few hours flit past. Dinner’s ready. I put the notebook back into my plastic bag, and place it on the bench. From the food line, I look back several times to make sure nobody steals my notebook. This place is full of thieves according to the Guardian Angel. I don’t care about the other items, but one notebook has now been initiated, serving as a removable hard-disk of my brain. And the tissues, needless to mention. Us bourgeois are characteristically neurotic with petty possessions.

After dinner, return to the grottoes. Evening parties promptly resume.

Inmates are assigned a different cell every night, but the guards normally permit free association; we can pick our roommates. This pragmatic latitude helps minimise night-time troubles. Tonight, I share a room with Marlboro and a chubby young man called Joe. Occupancy is still high. Joe’s a friendly and talkative shoplifter. He had come over to our table earlier this morning to introduce himself.

His case is even more unremarkable than mine. He had stolen a pack of chicken wings (nearly expired according to him, which is not only dumb, but also not an acceptable defence in my lay opinion) and two cans of mushrooms, totalling HK$60, from a ParknShop supermarket. For petty thefts, the police usually let the victim decide whether to press charges or not. The supermarket insisted on prosecution: ‘It isn’t the money, but a matter of principle.’ A magistrate sentenced Joe to forty days and forty nights in jail — two-third day for each American dime’s worth of stolen but unconsumed goods to uphold the moral principle of one of two main supermarket chains in Hong Kong. He’ll serve out his short sentence in LCK.

Joe prattles on about his life, which doesn’t sound very eventful until now. He lives with his grandparents in Wan Chai, not a housing project. They are neither rich nor poor, and his life neither easy nor tough. He doesn’t pretend to have a heartrending reason to shoplift. Maybe he only wants attention, or to experience prison? Perhaps he’s a kleptomaniac?

Flaky, notwithstanding his unstable dermatological condition, was infinitely more interesting. I did not see him all day. Has he Guo Gai? Or turned unto dust, gone with the wind?

Next episode See Hing

will be uploaded around 20 July 2025