War Dispatches: Part IV

Soft Secrets
20 May 2013

How can I describe El Dueso? After Cadiz prison, it was paradise.


How can I describe El Dueso? After Cadiz prison, it was paradise.

El Dueso on a rainy day

I spent the three days in isolation under an apple tree in the infirmary garden, listening to birds sing. The guards were easy, mellow and allowed friends in, often around beer time. Incredibly, we were allowed a beer in the afternoon. In a sunny garden surrounded by friends, it was an unbelievable experience.

Through these visits we learned about the different workshops around the prison and that we were eventually expected to work in one. Here, everybody worked - it was good for morale and helped to put gas in the director's Ferrari.

Three days later, we walked out onto the prison steps. Before us lay a village of odd-looking buildings, each from a different period in the prison's history. Beyond were the mountains and the sea - the sense of space was overwhelming - and at its center sat the prison, dark and brooding like some huge, Gothic spaceship. As I walked away, it hulked over me, its tower lost among a mist blowing in from the sea.

Our friends were amused at the amazement on our faces. They led us down dusty paths to a garden full of flowers, high above the Atlantic ocean. There are no words to describe my emotions as I stood in that spot, salt air blowing in my face, the waves breaking upon the shoreline below. Even though it was a prison, it was a magical place.

The wall

The tour continued and we were shown the farm, complete with cows. Foreigners were not allowed here; it was too close to the wall, something that was always in sight. It ran like a granite ribbon across the landscape, with a tower every hundred yards manned by a bored, heavily-armed guard.

There was also a swimming pool fed by the sea, off-limits due to prisoners escaping through the drainage pipe; the tennis courts were still in use, though. There were also small, individual gardens owned by prisoners, set in a little valley of half an acre or so. Gardens changed hands for lots of money; these were the places in which to spend spare time and drink. There was lots of alcohol in El Dueso. It was like a penal Club Med.

We were given two weeks to acclimatize, before choosing a job. Although most of the work on offer was an invitation to a lingering death in later life.

'Features' was a workshop where colored glass tiles were placed on sticky paper for bathroom walls. The wages were peanuts and the air full of glass dust - workers regularly coughed up blood. I decided to skip that one. In another shop, black plastic handles for cooking pots were polished. People who worked here looked like pandas, with black faces and white eyes from wearing goggles. Some wore cloths around their mouths; many just breathed in the dust. I passed on that one, too.

Then, there were footballs. A little-known fact, but all the balls from a famous German athletic merchandise brand were made in Spanish prison, sewn together by hand, for peanuts. Being an artist - and perhaps later, a rock musician - leather and needles were not ruining my hands. There was also the furniture workshop, a Colombian den of thieves - God himself could not get in there.

Those were the choices, so we retired to the garden to think about it. We thought for two weeks, played guitar and drank a lot of beer, but made no decision.

Inside the cell block

Just before the ax fell and a job was chosen for us, Fats showed up, looking like a frog and sweating a lot. He ran a small advertising business on the street and was looking for slave labor. We were summoned. I told him I was an artist and my friend a photographer. He asked about color separations and negative repairs. I had no idea, but said 'yes' anyway.

A week later we were in our own office above the furniture workshop, complete with pet guard Don Antonio, a bookworm with a uniform two sizes too big and tortoiseshell glasses. Most guards in El Dueso were pacifists and chose the prison service in place of military service. Antonio was such a guard. He would enter the office and immediately leave, embarrassed, if we were up to something.

Life changed for the better. Fats brought in a few luxuries: a radio, batteries, guitar strings. We had our own cells and beds with sheets - life was civilized. We were also allowed a beer or some wine twice a day, so there was a thriving black market. Most saved up, planning to get ripped at the weekends in the gardens. With our first wages we bought a garden and planted it with veggies and fast growing bushes to hide behind.

Prison money

Autumn passed into winter, and things were smooth. Just before Christmas, Fats brought in an Agfa Copy Camera, a forger's dream. I was admiring it over a few beers with an Englishman in for forgery and a Dutchman who did copper etching as a hobby. Coincidentally, on the desk was a color separation the size of a bank note, next to a stack of money-sized paper, and in walks the Director and Chief of Services. The beer was gone in a flash and we were at attention. He cast his eyes about the place, taking it all in, and left without a word. Fifteen minutes later, we were marching to the Director's office.

Lined up, he told us he knew everything. Really, we looked at each other blankly. Then the horror of circumstance seeped in. A camera, a forger, an artist and a Dutchman with etching acid and plates. They thought we were going to print prison money, driver's licenses maybe, but money!

He threatened transfer to Burgos and a couple years of sanction. It was scary. Fats showed up the next day and bailed us out; Antonio put in a good word and said we were honest - how funny! So now I was unemployed. Even worse, the office was locked and the Christmas beer stash was still inside, so we broke in on Christmas Eve and stole it back.

What followed was one of the best Christmases ever. All the foreigners got together in a double cell and partied the night away - booze, music, food, a little dope and the guards left us alone.

January arrived and with it the winds; we shivered in the library. In February, my friend went free. A great moment, you have just one hour to enjoy it and then you must leave. Tears, goodbyes, giving stuff away... and then, they are gone. I watched him walk to the local village, where tradition provides a few drinks and a bed for the night. One day it would be me.

The Director's garden

After reading up on roses in the library, I informed the director that his were sick. The next day I became prison gardener, receiving no pay but definitely benefits. I stayed in bed when it rained, had extra beer on hot days and had permission to go anywhere in the prison with my squeaky wheelbarrow.

It was a very hot summer and I spent much of it hiding in the long grass with a crate of beer, although I did take special care of the Director's garden. The Frenchies got me a few seeds and I planted Cannabis at either side of the Director's window. He would stand, hands behind his back, gazing out, framed by huge weed plants. Dressed like Papillon, I pushed my squeaky wheelbarrow back and forth under the office window, then I would wander in all sweaty and ask for a beer slip. I would always offer the Chief of Services my pen, then I would change the number later.

Down at the prison shop, Alfonso would wink and load a couple of crates onto my wheelbarrow. Unfortunately, he had designs upon my body.

The weed was coming along very nicely, and I had discovered nutmeg. Taken on an empty stomach with honey it is surprisingly hallucinogenic. You can drink beer forever and only get higher, but eat something and then it is over.

I created a church band. You could only join if you did not drink, but three weeks per year were cut from your sentence and there was a practice room, where you could watch me drink beer.

Things were going great... then came Prisoners' Day. Once the morning church service was over, most of the prison was getting drunk. I was on my way to nutmeg heaven, plus somebody gave me some acid. The visiting band had just come on and we were having a great time. Then the crowd shouted for us to go on with the band's instruments. Commonsense said a big 'no', but the spirit of Hendrix entered me; what followed left an audience looking like an oil painting.

The director and the priest had been in the front row; the next day, I turned in my wheelbarrow. There were questions about what I had been growing in the garden, but I managed to harvest before they found anything. Unemployed again.

A new workshop repairing electric motors opened, and amazingly I was put in charge - I think the director secretly had a sense of humor. Antonio was to be our guard; it was good to have him back. With a warm workshop and view where we could see when the boss was coming, winter was not too bad. Then, Franco finally died.

This was it: they would give a pardon, and it would be a big one as it was also the holy year. So, we waited. One day, out of the blue, my request for a personal pardon was granted, leaving me just four years hacienda to serve. There I was, enjoying my pardon, when at midday they announced a general pardon - for which I no longer qualified.

I ran back to the office and asked them to rip up my personal pardon, but they refused. I had signed; that was it. If I had had the other sentence, the overtime would have been transferred to my hacienda and I would have walked. Now I still had a year to serve, while everybody else went home. I was very upset; people with longer sentences than mine were going home, yet I stayed. The Italian hit-man went free! Even the guards were sympathetic.

The positive side: I got everybody's goodies. I owned three gardens, two guitars and so many blankets, books and furniture, my cell was full. However, all the goodbyes were painful.

El Dueso by the sea

Eventually there were only three of us left, plus fifty-odd Spaniards. Then came the riot in Madrid prison and it burned down, so we got all their prisoners. Suddenly the place was full of real assholes and there was a lot of violence. One night in the coffee queue, a particularly nasty Spaniard tried to stab a French friend of mine. Before I knew what I was doing, I had him up against a wall and was smashing his face in with a guitar slide. I exploded with frustration and nearly beat a guy to death. For this I was in the cells, maybe with another six months, but the French guy showed the guards the wound and they believed his story, so I got off.

I had had enough of this shit and wanted to go home. I had been sentenced to expulsion from Spain; however, it would be another six months before my pardon came through. Already free, I had to wait six weeks to be taken to the border. The journey then took three weeks, through six prisons, where they stole everything - I did not even have a jacket.

A policeman gave me a Guardia Civil battledress in which to go free. Finally, they removed the handcuffs and I walked into France a free man. Crossing the bridge, after all those years in Spain I looked back - there was CRACK! of thunder and the heavens opened. I got soaked - what an anti-climax! Then the French took me and searched me. Isn't this where I came in?

Stay tuned for the fifth and final installment of this tale...

S
Soft Secrets