Harry Shaw

“Somewhere in the distance I hear the bucket clatter to the floor. I plunge the knife into his head, again and again. His arms lash out blindly, getting in the way. Blood mixes with water cascading to the floor. Meathead staggers to his feet, pulling off his shirt, trying to peel away the agony, but his skin comes away with it, leaving a raw, red mess. There’s a shrill alarm and the sound of pounding feet. I hurl the knife through the bars at the window. A blur of dark faces converge in my vision, fists and feet, punching and kicking. Meathead’s mates are yanking me off, trying to hurt me. Screws come rushing and soon they’re everywhere as I’m half-carried, half-dragged along the corridor. ‘Blimey,’ a thought comes from somewhere in all the chaos, ‘I’ve only been out a day and already I’m heading straight back down the chokey!’ The last thing I see, as a screaming Meathead is hurried to the hospital, is my cellmate in the middle of the crowd peering worriedly after me. Course he’s worried! The stinky bastard is wondering where his next bit of scag is coming from!”

“He laughs and turns up the music so that I can hear it in the back. The speakers blast out: ‘Streets like a jungle, so call the police.’‘Call the police,’ I smile, ‘fuck the police’ nodding my head to the beat. The guard turns it up even more.‘Yeah, fuck the police for stitching me up and presenting their dodgy evidence,’ I think to myself. Fuck them for getting me put away for seven instead of the four or five I should have got.A new song comes on and I’m merrily tapping my feet while the guard sings along up front to The Clash. ‘Fighting the nation. Police and thieves in the street, oh yeah…Oh yeah! Scaring the nation with their guns and ammunition. Police and thieves in the street. Oh yeah. Fighting the nation with their guns and ammunition’.Ha ha. The DJ on the radio is on my side. The Securicor men are on my side. And I’m heading back to civilisation and as many drugs as I can get my hands on. Everything’s going my way. There must be a song about that, too.”