I am in no mood for stupid conversation. 

“So, all us man going. Wanno yeah!?”

I kiss my teeth loudly.. I crave silence. 

I shut my eyes as though meditating, though I fail to clear my mind. How the fuck did I end up here?

“Ay yo driver, come we move! I don’t wanna be late for dinner!”

I can’t figure out where the voice was coming from. Every word buzzing  around my ears like a bluebottle. 

Standing there, scanning my surroundings, I know that this slither of freedom would be my last. I am clever enough to know at that moment to snapshot what I see. To commit, on that sweatbox, what I see to memory. 

***

The sweatbox has between eight and ten compartments. I try to count them before a shove from the screw sends me into my cramped booth. We are all on our way to prison, locked in tight rectangular units. The stench of piss and vomit is overpowering. It will never leave me. 

A black plastic chair is my only piece of furniture. Out of the windows, heavily tinted, I see London in what looks like monochrome.. I watch colourless people going about mundane tasks: parents shop, couples kiss, children zig-zag with new envy. All of them are oblivious to a freedom they take for granted. The walls of my confinement are decorated with phallic symbols and prison poetry.  I even become privy to the innermost thoughts, scratched into the wall, of the damned that came before me:

“Stacey is a slag. I should know: I’m her father”. 

***

It had been forty or so minutes and we still had not moved. I rub my hands together between my thighs, the cuffs strangle my wrists. The pain of metal cutting skin I find more bearable than the bitter cold of the January afternoon. That these vehicles were known as ‘sweatboxes’ was either ignorance or irony 

“Show me ya ‘ands son.” 

The gravelly voiced screw orders me to place my wrists out of a small letterbox window in front of my compartment door. He uncuffs me. 

“There you go, lad!” 

Rubbing my wrists to soothe the dull ache, I feel the sweatbox lurch into gear. We are finally on the move. 

Every sharp turn the van takes throws me, and I have to use my hands to stop my face from smashing into the metal wall in front of me. It is stained by what looks like dried mucus and blood.

***

Wandsworth prison had always been my local, growing up in Junction. I was more than familiar with the route we were taking. . It was only a few months ago that I walked on the same grey streets we shudder past now. 

***

They let us out one by one onto a sprawling courtyard, framed by walls crowned with barbed wire. I find myself cuffed again, though I don't recall how. 

I glance at my fellow inmates: eight in total, including myself. One of them, a short Indian man, had clearly been crying. His trousers were wet with urine.  I will never forget that face, contorted into a grotesque mask of both fear and sadness.

***

There is no preparation for your first time in prison, and I would be lying if I said I felt no fear. 

Whagwarn?” 

That voice again. I turn around, finally able to attach it to a tall, wiry body. His skin is almost as dark as the tracksuit he wears and  there is a menacing  scar across his right cheek. He looks otherwise quite pedestrian. His eyes dart around: too much for my liking. 

“Whagwarn?!” 

He stretches that last syllable as if confused. 

“Yo! what you in for?” 

He won’t give up. I shrug my shoulders. 

“Just a case of mistaken identity. Wrong place, wrong time, I guess.” 

He laughs, baring gold-capped teeth.

“You’re funny still Wrong place, wrong time must pay well Mister Suited and Booted...” 

I am thankful that, at that moment, our conversation is cut short. Two screws lead us away to separate rooms to be searched.

One, a heavy-set Rottweiler of a man, orders me to remove my clothing.

"Everything?”

“Are you deaf as well as stupid? REMOVE… ALL.. CLOTHING!EVERYTHING!” 

His partner is pale and chubby-faced. There are flakes of dandruff rest on his shoulders – his blonde hair is clearly thinning. 

“Take it easy Chaka, it’s his first day here.” 

“We are not babysitters. He’s not here for his acts of charity Col, they're all guilty of suttin’.”

Dutifully, I untie my laces, remove my shoes, my socks, my overcoat, tie, shirt, trousers, and, finally, my underwear. Chaka coughs, tapping his wrist. I notice my watch. 

“Ain’t that a beauty, Col? Take that off and hand it to me. Don’t worry, don’t worry – we’ll take good care of it. Won’t we Col?!” 

They break out in laughter. I am being strip-searched by the Chuckle Brothers. 

I unclip my watch and hand it to Col. By now, the dandruff on his shoulders is almost forming piles. 

“This is fancy, innit? What you reckon, Chaka? About a year’s wages this?”

Dangling between their fingers, the screws inspect my watch like amateur horologists. Chaka lets out a long, cartoonish whistle.

“Yeah, about that I’d guess. It’s one of those Rolex numbers. I always wanted one, but could never afford it. Us hardworking, honest men, we always get shafted. Imagine a year's wages on ya wrist.” 

“Get a different job then.?”, I say without realising.

“Listen to Mister Smart-Alec over ‘ere! How about I love this job? How about I love making sure that thieving scum like you are kept in cages where you belong! My parents came here on the Windrush, worked hard all their lives and were spat on.  Chased but kept their heads down. They made a life for themselves, then had kids and we did the same. We all got on, didn’t we Col?

“That indeed we did, Chaka.” 

“Now entitled shits like you come along, with all ya ‘init bruvs, ya get me’s’. You lot don’t even speak fucking English! All this American crap! I’m a proud black British man, you see. I know you lot don’t want to fit in. Crying racism at every opportunity! I know what real racism was, and you know who was the most racist? My so-called black bredrin and sisterins laughed at me for being too dark! Hair too tough, lips too big.  You stand here, with your fancy watches and your suits,  and you think you’re better than me, don’t ya? Well, you’re not. You’re just another dirty, thieving ni…”

“Chaka you’ll get us a write-up! You racist!”

“Col, I'm black. I can't be racist.” 

They break out into fits of laughter.

“It's freezing Chaka, let him put his clothes back on. Can’t you see he’s cold?” 

“Stevie fuckingWonder can see he’s cold”. 

“Oi Chaka, I thought you lot were meant to be hung like donkeys?” 

Chaka glares at me. “Well, Col, there's always one of ‘em making us look bad.” 

They talk around me as if inspecting a shop mannequin. I feel a rage burning inside me.

“Ask your wife!!!”, I spit.

“Oh! We got a live wire ‘ere!”

“What did you just say?” 

I look Chaka in the face. I will not break my stare.

“Go on, say it again.”

“Are you deaf as well as dumb? I said talk to your wife. She’ll tell you I’m a grower, not a shower.” 

Colin lets out a laugh so involuntary, he bends over as if he had been punched in the gut. Chaka grabs me by my neck. Until then, I’d never seen a black man's face turn red. 

“The walls have eyes, Chaka!”, pleads Col, the pragmatist.

Chaka freezes like an attack dog told to heel by his owner. The veins in his forehead pulsate. 

 “Your card’s marked, lad.” 

“You better listen to your massa, Chaka.” 

“Oi, that's enough of that lad! There’s only so much we’ll tolerate , you hear me? Now, both of yous, pick up ya handbags.”

***

The first day inside is a blur of personal intrusions and indignities.  Photos are taken, fingers are printed, mouths swabbed, blood pressure measured, height, and weight recorded. Human cattle, herded, stamped, and made ready for slaughter. It isn’t comforting to know that I am not alone on this conveyor belt of humiliation: like me, each man will have a piece of himself procedurally stripped away until he is bare.  We will each be embossed with a number soon: new cogs in the wheel of sham rehabilitation. 

I no longer belong to me. The length of my days, my nights, when I eat – all will be dictated. When I wake, or wash, or shit –  all will be scheduled. 

***

As well as grey tracksuits and plimsolls, new inmates are given a plastic crucifix. In these grim factories, even atheists find themselves turning to zealotry.. I grip mine under a rain of standardised questions.

“Are you suicidal?” 

“Are you part of any gang?” 

“Are you on any drugs?” 

“Do you smoke?”

This last question is the only one I answer in the affirmative. I am lying -- I do not smoke, but know how useful burn and rizla can be in prison. I take the small pack of both I’m offered. 

And so, this is it, my new home for the next few months. 

***

Prison is an unrelenting cacophony of screams, shouts, booming laughter, underpinned by sharp smells. Bleach, sweat, decay allhang in the air. Amidst the verbal chaos, someone hollers: “Fresh food landing! New eats! New eats!” 

We are escorted past a large blue star motif painted on the floor in the middle of the main prison. The Wandsworth Star. It is encased in an even larger hexagonal metal grid – under no circumstances, we are told, is a prisoner allowed to walk over the hexagon, only around. You learn quickly that transgressions like these – or, really, anything that might undermine compliance or control – are met swiftly and violently by the screws. 

Above our heads are cell block landings which stretch like the legs of an enormous iron tarantula. Between each landing are wide knotted nets. No inmate, thrown or jumped, is allowed to die by falling here. 

I close my eyes at the top of the metal steps to one of the landings, take a deep breath and exhale. The screw supervising me unlocks the door in front of us both. 

I have a cell to myself. 

***

The walls are covered in graffiti. There is a  toilet by the bunk bed. There is no partition. Sink. Mirror. Cupboard. , , Even a window.. 

***

I pace my cell from the door to the window. 13 steps --  an unlucky number. I wash my face and lay on the thin mattress, waiting – hoping –  for sleep to take me. I can hear men whimpering in cells nearby.

***

They say night is the hardest. You can't escape yourself. Since they gave up hanging in the 60s, the inmates take it upon themselves. Their lives are, in a sense, the one thing they can wrest control of in this place. It always happens at night. 

***

I dream I’m in an open field on my first night. There is nothing around me but an endless carpet of electric green grass beneath my bare feet. There is no wind. The air smells of summer. It is funny how much more such small things – grass, sunlight, quiet – mean once you lose everything.

I hear screaming in the distance. I’m awake now, but the screaming continues. It takes longer than it should to realise that the screaming is coming from me. 

I can feel white heat rush through my body. I am burning in a flameless fire, and, throwing off my clothes, I learn why.

I am covered in lice, drunk  on my blood. They hang onto my pubic hair, the hairs on my legs, hairs on my arms. I brush off as many as I can, the burning intensifies. I feel blotches start to pool on my skin. 

I bang the cell door, my finger stuck on the buzzer. At last, I hear the sound of keys 

“This better be good Offori, I was kipping.”

 “Open the fucking door!” I yell.

He obliges.  “Bloody hell, what happened?” I shout in a raw voice “Lice, I’m covered in lice!” 

“Jesus! One second, I’ll be back.” 

I rush to the bed, dash the covers onto the floor., The mattress is smeared in blood.

A voice, wiry and dark, cries: “Welcome to Wanno”