Chapter 8

Chapter 8
Spending another twenty-three hours incarcerated in a shoebox, Barry and Tobias amused themselves by having Barry do monumentally complex mathematical equations in his head, then testing to see if he was correct with a calculator. After Tobias grew tired of his cellmate’s infallibility at maths, he created a new test for Barry. ‘What number am I thinking of?’ said Tobias ‘I’m not telepathic.’ ‘Come on, I’m thinking of a number, I’m projecting it to you with my mind.’ Barry concentrated hard to see if not only was he fantastically smart, but that if he also had special powers. Potential superhero names had already begun to run through his vast intellect: The Brainalator, Mindman and High IQ Human. ‘Five hundred and forty two,’ said Barry speculatively. ‘Wow, oh my god, you can read minds too!’ Barry leapt off his bunk in amazement. ‘That was the number you were thinking?’ ‘Nah,’ answered Tobias casually. Barry was crushed, having had big plans for his superpowers. ‘Thanks, you got my hopes up then, I thought I was going to embark on a life as a superhero.’ Tobias pointed out to his deluded friend that superhero stories don’t usually start with the hero locked up in prison for armed robbery and hitting a defenceless woman over the head with a spanner. ‘No mate, you’d have to be a supervillain, they don’t let people like us be heroes.’
98 ‘I could’ve been framed for my crimes. Did you think of that?’ ‘Yeah but you weren’t framed, you’re as guilty as the wolf outta Little Red Riding Hood.’ ‘Yeah...’ The place Barry had called home for the past year didn’t frighten him like it did when he first arrived because the Weirdway’s community had accepted him with open arms. Everyone treated him with a respect that he’d never experienced anywhere else. He had at first presumed he’d be pitilessly bullied, but the feeling of terror for everyone he encountered had abated after a couple of weeks, and he’d come to consider Weirdways Prison a better home than the Hickey Hills. Sure the conditions were terrible, the food tasted like it had been scraped off a pavement, and showering with a load of psychopaths, rapists, murderers, con-artists and child molesters was slightly irksome, but apart from those drawbacks Barry didn’t consider it all that bad. Unfortunately things were about to drastically change: for all his raw cognitive power, Barry failed to comprehend that the only reason he had been treated with respect was because he was a good friend of Tobias Robinson, who just about everyone feared. ‘These guys in here, they’re not all that bad are they Tobias? I mean everyone thinks they’re animals, but they’ve all been really nice to me since I came here. They’re just ordinary people who’ve made a few mistakes. If you forget the Crazy Craig incident this is the best I’ve ever been treated.’ ‘Yeah…’ Spending so much time with his nose buried in books and eyes rampantly scanning the internet for his now favourite fix, knowledge, Barry had failed to notice
99 the bullying and violence endured by many of the physically-weaker inmates. Needless to say, Barry also fell into this category of the physically-weak. Tobias had something very important to say. ‘You know Barry I’m out of here by the end of the week.’ ‘What! You didn’t tell me that.’ ‘Yeah I know. I’ve sort of been dreading telling you.’ ‘Well—I’ll miss you, but hey, it’s not that bad, I’ll be out of here too in a year, and you can always write me.’ ‘Nah, that isn’t the reason I have been dreading telling you.’ ‘What is it then?’ asked a bemused Barry. ‘Haven’t you noticed how some of the inmates in here,’ Tobias appeared to be struggling for the right words, ‘kinda sit funny?’ Wrinkles creased Barry’s brow and he gave a perplexed smile: he didn’t know what the hell Tobias was on about. ‘No…’ ‘Look, everyone here has only been nice to you because I’m your friend, but now that I’m going you aren’t gonna have anybody to look out for you.’ This painful truth was hard for Barry to take. He wasn’t respected at Weirdways Prison, just like he hadn’t been respected outside it. It was a crushing blow to a self-esteem that had until just then been on the mend. He entered into denial. ‘Nah, those guys’ll be cool, they like me.’ Tobias didn’t say anything; there wasn’t a whole lot to say. At the end of the week Tobias left the very scared Barry to face the beastly prison and its occupants on his lonesome. The parting of these two friends was a sorrowful sight.
100 ‘Good luck mate,’ said Tobias as he left, his voice laced with melancholy. Barry felt guilty that he was consumed with envy at his friends escape. Tobias was now a free man while he wasn’t, and it pained him to even muster a half-hearted farewell. Yet after the cell door was locked, and Barry heard his friend begin to walk away, he knew he’d regret not saying goodbye properly for the rest of his life. He got up and shouted: ‘WAIT!’ The cell door was reopened. Tobias pushed past the annoyed guard and the two friends embraced each other with a robust hug, after which point they both felt embarrassed at their open display of emotion. The dour, soulless prison guard attempted to crush the two men’s dignity, but his effort was in vain as he didn’t realise this wasn’t like destroying flesh or bone, that this was something that couldn’t be simply broken with crude violence or words. ‘Bloody homos, I bet you’ve ad some fun in here together.’ The guard was ignored as one might ignore a bratty child. Although they both didn’t know it right at that moment, Tobias and Barry would never see each other in person again because despite their shared understanding, their lives were moving in very different directions. As Barry lay on his bunk staring disconsolately at the ceiling, he wondered how things could possibly get any worse. ‘Hey Broomfield, you’re getting a new cellmate, he’ll be here soon. We’ve got a real treat for you this time.’ The prison guard said these words with ominous sick pleasure through the small laminated glass window on the cell door.
Dear lord, thought Barry, knowing it was doubtful he would be paired with such another lovely cohabitant.
101 ‘Sooo, this is my new cage, well well well…’ The voice had a distinctly odd, flat robotic monotone to it. Barry looked up from his bunk and saw that his new cellmate was eyeing him with suspicion. ‘This is who you’ve got to spy on me is it?’ said the man to the prison guard that’d accompanied him. The new cellmate turned back to face Barry. ‘Going to keep your friends informed about me are you? Yes you look the type; you have the pointed face of an informant.’ ‘I’ll leave you two to get acquainted… two nutters together… you should get on like a house on fire,’ said the guard before leaving. The moment the guard had left, Barry’s new cellmate started tipping everything in the cell upside down. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ asked Barry horrified. ‘I’ve got to find where they’ve hidden the cameras and bugging devices.’ ‘Who’s going to put stuff like that in here?’ ‘The MI5, they study my every move. I bet you’re MI5 too, don’t bother trying to pretend you’re not.’ Barry sighed, looked to the heavens (well the ceiling of his tiny cell) and reasoned this was going to be a very long and miserable year. As his new cellmate searched the cell with a fine tooth comb over and over again for the observational apparatus that had been put in place to spy on him, Barry made a stab at conversation. ‘So is this your first time inside?’ ‘Me, nooo, they’re always putting me in because I know too much. I’m too dangerous for them on the outside.’
102 ‘Oh okay,’ said an incredulous Barry as he rolled his eyes. If he thought his first morning without the shield of Tobias’s protective wing had got off to a bad start, Barry hadn’t seen anything yet because the afternoon brought with it the overt dangers of the prison yard. ‘Oy Broomfield, get that pretty little arse of yours over here.’ Barry turned to see a hairy gorilla slash man making lewd gestures with his mouth at him and beckoning him to come over. Ignoring the request Barry decided to go and see what Bogdan Petrov was doing instead. ‘Hey Bogdan.’ Petrov replied in his usual thick Russian brogue. ‘What do you want? Come to humiliate me again? Well I can tell you that you might be better at chess than me, but now that your big friend has gone, humiliate me again and it’ll be the last thing you ever do.’ Barry gave a stifled laugh in the hope Petrov might be joking, but quickly realised the Russian was deadly serious: triple murderers don’t usually joke about such matters. It didn’t take long for Barry to fathom that he didn’t have a single friend in Weirdways. Everyone who’d previously shown him respect now looked down on him with contempt. Prison is a very lonely, not to mention dangerous place when you’re on your own. Not only was Barry a weakling, but many of the inmates resented the fact he’d been granted privileges for his good behaviour. They also resented that he’d received a lean sentence on the grounds of mental illness, in spite of the fact that he seemed more or less normal. The next few days for our chief protagonist were not the happiest.
103 Attempting as best he could to forget his ‘encounter’ in the showers, Barry tried getting to know his new cellmate, who although was very much insane made a highly intriguing companion. Barry took to studying the mental illness that so obviously afflicted his bunk buddy, who had finally decided, regardless of his belief that Barry was a spy for the MI5, that he would indulge him his name. It turned out to be the highly amusing Sammy Nammy. ‘Think that’s funny do you?’ said a crazy-eyed Sammy, amidst Barry’s gales of laughter. It was an absolute travesty that Sammy’s last name was Nammy, but what was even more of a travesty was that he was in a prison, as anybody with a brain stem and two eyes could see the man was mentally detached from any kind of reality. But there was a small part of Barry that was actually thankful for Sammy’s placement alongside him, because he served as a valuable insight into the mental illness he’d experienced just over a year ago. Reading up books on the topic, Barry tried to learn what had gone wrong in his own mind to prevent it happening again in the future. After learning about the various symptoms involved in various mental illnesses, Sammy was diagnosed as a classic case of schizophrenia, while Barry concluded the illness he himself had suffered in the Hickey Hills was dissociative identity disorder, an illness more commonly known to laymen as the split personality. With his unkempt long hair, unshaven face, wild, wandering eyes and paranoid delusions; Sammy brought back painful memories for Barry and great sadness as he knew just how real those hallucinations could appear. Attempting to talk the higher-ranking prison guards into allowing Sammy to have a psychiatric evaluation, Barry was disappointed to find none of them were willing to cooperate.
104 ‘Tell Gordon, it’s not my problem.’ ‘Tell Bridgette, that’s not my department.’ ‘Did Gordon say to come to me? Get lost, I’m busy.’ Going round in circles, Barry realised he was getting nowhere fast. He really wanted to help Sammy, knowing that without professional help his cellmate’s condition would only deteriorate. But there was another, ulterior motive to Barry’s help Sammy plan: He simply didn’t think he could stand Sammy’s craziness much longer. And, coupled to this, the man’s personal hygiene was absolutely atrocious, so bad in fact none of the other inmates were willing to give Sammy the same ‘special treatment’ they had bestowed upon Barry. Realising the underlings were only prepared to do the bare minimum for the wellbeing of the inhabitants of Weirdways, Barry decided to see the prison’s Warden and head honcho, Mr Merryweather. There was a problem however as you could not simply walk up to such an important man like Mr Merryweather and ask him a question: you instead had to book an appointment. The soonest available was in two weeks. ‘Two weeks!’ said Barry in dismay. That night Barry came close to pulling out his hair as he tried hopelessly to block out Sammy’s voice with his pillow. Sammy just wouldn’t shut up, almost constantly talking in his robotic monotone to the people and voices he would see and hear, all the while pacing the little shoe box of a cell back and forth. He also did a brilliant
105 impression of a broken record: he liked to replay segments of conversations he’d had, real or imaginary, over and over again as if he enjoyed reliving the moment of them. ‘Oh yes she said, oh yes she said, oh yes she said, oh yes she said, oh yes she said.’ ‘SSSHHHUTTT UUPPP! FOR GODS SAKE SHUT UP,’ shouted Barry, finally coming to the end of his ropes after throwing his pillow at the wall. Sammy halted his discourse and got in his bunk to go to sleep. Barry placed the pillow back under his head, pulled the covers over his exhausted body, and slowly closed his eyes to at long last sink into a deep slumber. ‘Oh yes she said, oh yes she said, oh yes she said, oh yes she said.’ Barry groaned, highly embittered because it was beginning to look like he may plunge headlong into a second mental breakdown at this rate. In preparation for his meeting with Mr Merryweather Barry did his research thoroughly by listing the symptoms his subject had been suffering that confirmed the illness was indeed schizophrenia. The list was quite long. Aside from the constant talking to himself, pacing, and believing that the MI5 were spying on him, Sammy also displayed the following disorders:
1) Sits and stares at his hands for hours, believing they’ve changed.
2) Experiences severe bouts of depression and has even attempted suicide by
overdosing on cough drops.
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3) Believes mind-altering drugs are being put in his food, and that the food always
tastes funny. Incidentally, Barry also believed the food at Weirdways tasted funny, but that was just because it tasted like crap.
4) Laughs at inappropriate times like in the middle of the night when his cellmate is
trying to get to sleep.
5) Creates neologisms (invented words) and speaks in word salads (strings of
unrelated words).
6) Believes his thoughts are being broadcast on the prison television and the cell’s
radio.
7) Believes that he can read other people’s thoughts.
8) Grabs his cellmate in the middle of the night and screams in his ear. With these extreme symptoms backing up his case, Barry felt it impossible for Mr Merryweather to do anything other than admit Sammy Nammy was a mentally troubled individual who clearly needed psychiatric help. Mr Merryweather’s office was usually forbidden ground for inmates’ feet, so this was the first time Barry had laid eyes upon it. Now offices in general, it has to be said, are
107 all pretty much similar, but what struck Barry the most about this particular one was the obsessive, fastidious nature with which it was maintained. Every pencil, every book, every piece of paper, every picture was aligned in perfect symmetrical order to everything else. The room appeared to be entirely clear of all physical impurity, the carpet looked brand new, there was not a bit of rust or a scratch on the filing cabinets, and even the waste paper bin was immaculate. Barry wondered if in fact the office had been sterilised to eradicate all microbial life as well. Then there was Mr Merryweather himself who beamed at Barry with the wide grin of a cat playing with its prey. His appearance spoke of a compulsion with cleanliness and order. The dark trousers he wore had been so overzealously pressed that the crease running down the leg was razor sharp, and could probably cut through human flesh if required. The side parting on his head possessed an artificial look due to each individual strand of hair being positioned in precisely the right place, as if it was the result of a surgical procedure rather than a mere comb. And behind the dark horn-rimmed glasses were his large, lifeless grey eyes that betrayed the wide smile. ‘Before we begin Mr Broomfield, I’ll need you to sign this form to state that Mr Griswald is here: it’s the law that two people should always be in attendance at such meetings.’ Mr Griswald stood towards the back of the office by the door. ‘Grizzly’ Griswald is as crooked as they come. He was the business associate of Crazy Craig when Barry was being shown a multitude of shivs and shanks. He is well known for the liberal use of his standard-prison-issue baton, so Barry assumed rightly that he wasn’t really there for his benefit at all but was instead an intimidation device. Barry speculated on whether or not Mr Merryweather was aware of the
108 violence and underhand dealings for which Griswald was renowned, and then he decided he’d rather not as the thought scared him. The form for Barry to sign contained a large quantity of unnecessary small print and so it was taking him an uncomfortably protracted amount of time to read it all. The awkward silence while he read what he was about to put his signature on was cut short by a glance from Mr Merryweather to Griswald. ‘Just sign it Broomfield, the Warden hasn’t got all day,’ said the smiling Grizzly as he leant into Barry’s ear. Barry reached for a pen from Mr Merryweather’s desk, his handcuffed wrists jangling obtrusively into the suffocating quiet. ‘Ah um.’ Mr Merryweather motioned to one of the pencils on his desk: he wasn’t about to let this piece of slime use his luxury platinum 18 karat gold-nibbed white-ivorylacquered monstrosities. Barry signed his name, for all he knew he could be signing his life away; then he placed the pencil back where it belonged. ‘Ah um.’ ‘What?’ said Barry looking at Mr Merryweather baffled. ‘Er, thank you for letting me use your pencil.’ ‘No, you didn’t place it back where it belongs.’ Barry moved the writing implement a couple of millimetres to the left, emboldened, he then decided to have a little fun at the ridiculousness of the situation. ‘Hang on; I think I’ve got it. Wait there, nope lost it. Oh wait yep, I’ve got it again.’ Barry was nudging the pencil ever so slightly in differing directions.
109 Griswald barked from the back of the room: ‘That’ll do Broomfield.’ Grizzly’s baton was being caressed in his giant mitt and Barry knew the fun was over. Mr Merryweather picked up the pencil Barry had just used; unashamedly, he then pulled out a handkerchief from the top pocket of his suit and used it to give the pencil a vigorous wipe, before replacing it in the correct position on the desk. Placing his finger tips together Mr Merryweather then looked across at Barry. ‘Now then Mr Broomfield, what seems to be such a problem that you feel the need to take up my valuable time?’ ‘It’s my cellmate Sammy, I think he needs some help, he’s very sick.’ ‘Sick, how?’ A disgusting smile curled out of the corner of Mr Merryweather’s lips. ‘He’s mentally ill. I’ve made a list of the symptoms and I think you’ll find he’s suffering from schizophrenia.’ ‘How would you know that? Are you a qualified psychiatrist? The last time I looked you were a failed window cleaner.’ ‘Well I’ve had a little experience of mental illness myself, and I’ve also read quite a bit about the—’ ‘Oh so now you’re an expert,’ said Mr Merryweather in a sharp taunting tone. ‘No I think Sammy is just fine where he is actually.’ ‘I don’t think you understand,’ said Barry politely as possible. ‘Don’t worry I understand, I understand just fine. I know that you were the one stealing those stamps Mr Broomfield, I can’t prove it but I know. Unfortunately on the outside a man is innocent until proven guilty, but that is not the case in here. Sammy is my gift to you, enjoy.’
110 It was not lost on Barry that all this could have been informed to him straight away, rather than letting him go through the hassle of having this charade of a meeting that’s real purpose was now becoming all-too clear. The only pleasure in Livingston Merryweather’s pathetic existence was making his prisoners lives hell. He obtained obscene amounts of delight from their misery because the inmates to him were disgusting sub-humans, lower than even animals, which is why he felt he had to keep his office so ordered and clean for fear that their filth would infect him. As he walked around Weirdways he believed he was breathing in their pollution, and his only haven from this infestation of dirt was his office. The seemingly random thuggery of men like Mr Griswald was, in his unbalanced opinion, a necessary control mechanism within the establishment to maintain a healthy atmosphere of terror. It looked as if Barry was going to be stuck with his cellmate for the foreseeable future, and while he felt sorry for himself, he simultaneously felt extremely sorry for Sammy because if he hadn’t gone and stole the stamps in the first place, Sammy wouldn’t have been used as a prop in Mr Merryweather’s twisted and vindictive attempt at revenge. Sammy’s illness was clearly deteriorating and Barry was engulfed by a deadened feeling of helplessness. He wanted to make Mr Merryweather understand what damage he was doing, but he had a strong suspicion that if anything, Sammy was in a better mental state than the Prison Warden. With his track record of mental illness, Barry knew that to continue being locked up in close proximity with another mentally-ill person could have a detrimental effect on his own health. But then Mr Merryweather made it clear, in no uncertain terms, this is exactly what he hoped would happen and that it would actually make his miserable job worthwhile.
111 Of course Barry was no longer allowed to be the prison’s postman, but the most sickening development of all was that his prison privileges, including his internet and library access were confiscated. Mr Merryweather wasn’t even aware Barry was on the list for privileges but happily removed them after Grizzly informed him otherwise. Barry thought that for nicking a few stamps—well alright—a couple of thousand, the severity of Mr Merryweather’s gifts was a smidge draconian. Back in the dismal confines of his cell with only the company of a raving lunatic to console him, Barry for the first time since his arrival at Weirdways wondered if any of it was worth it, if it was really worth continuing with his depressing life. He looked down at his shoelaces but didn’t think they looked strong enough to hold his weight. He remembered that Tobias had told him one of his old cellmates had committed suicide, and that a couple of the guards had joked that at least it would help the overcrowding situation. That would be one positive that would come out of my
demise, Barry mused logically. He then thought about who would miss him if he was to do the unthinkable and found there were very, very few names on that list, in fact, as it turned out there was only one, Bob, his albino pet rabbit. Barry was convinced having only one solitary rabbit on his list of people who’d be upset if he snuffed it, didn’t really constitute a good enough reason to prolong his wretched life any longer. The most important task Barry now had to accomplish, having made up his mind to end his life, was what the last words on his suicide note would be. The first sentence that got serious consideration was: Am I dying, or is this my birthday? Barry liked it, but nevertheless felt it didn’t quite encompass the full range of his hatred for mankind.
112 The second one that he gave intense contemplation towards was: I have
nothing; I owe much; the rest I leave to the poor. Again, he didn’t really feel these particular last words encapsulated just how much he disliked life, as well as the people that just so happened to like it.
Yeah those aren’t bad but I dunno— they’re not quite right, thought Barry with a gloom-ridden feeling that he’d never think of the adequate final words. Just as he was beginning to give up hope a light bulb illuminated his mind. He had found them; he had found what he’d place on his suicide note.
The tragedy of life is that you’re alive. This sentence summed it all up; this sentence was Finbar Cedric Broomfield. The world and the filth that inhabited it had treated him like a dirty radish, so why should he care if he wasn’t going to see it again? Barry believed that he’d finally come to understand the meaning of life: life is the worst thing that can possibly happen to a person, and so there is no meaning other than pain. With reaching this epiphany the willingness to end his life grew in strength. For the first time in many nights Barry noticed Sammy was no longer pacing back and forth or speaking to himself, he was instead snoring quietly and probably pleasantly dreaming of being chased by the MI5. Barry shifted his weight slowly out of his bunk, trying his best to not let it creak too loudly. The noose had already been prepared. One of his fellow prisoners had shown him how to make one out of a bed sheet. Barry thought it very kind of this inmate to teach him this skill as it meant he now wouldn’t have to use his shoelaces to do the job. Silently he placed a chair under his cell window, tied the noose to the bars then took a deep breath before slowly placing the loop over his head.
113 Standing there on his chair he thought about the terrible things that had happened to him and the terrible people who’d brought him to this point. His life so far had indeed been a ghastly torment and merited this dramatic course of action, yet slowly a few other thoughts, slightly less grey in colour began to filter down through his brain. He began to wonder if things may improve once he left Weirdways, he was now; after all, in the possession of supercomputer intelligence, and felt that maybe he could use it to turn his life around. Out of the gravely serious, suicidal disposition came a glimmer of hope: Barry hadn’t forgotten what Bogdan Petrov had said about there being money and fame for someone who could play chess the way he could. He removed the noose from around his neck, stepped off the chair, walked over to his suicide note that lay on his bunk and scrunched it up into his hand.