1. 1
CLIP JOINT
A NOVEL BY
GREG LONDON

2. 2
INTRODUCTION
Every city has one of those places that you just can’t explain. A shit-hole of a bar
that’s worse than any other in town but for some reason you just keep on going. It’s
on the wrong side of town, juxtaposed with the local crack-whore homeless
contingent. It’s a dilapidated dump that makes no apologies for itself. No attempt to
glamour itself up. Unashamedly ugly. Inside, it’s tacky and damp, dark and dingy so
you can’t see the dirt. The music is dated but not at all classic. Service is slow and
comes with a shuffling huffing from made-up androgynous spiky stick insects with
frazzled, washed-out crazy-colour highlights and pastel-coloured sparkly t-shirts that
look borrowed from their three year old nieces, cropped, exposing sagging, orange
skin that hints a more advancing age than they’d like you to think. Crusty naval
piercing optional. And of course, the token lumbering butch fat barmaid with inky-
dink DIY tattooed knuckles and surprisingly small tits for such a big bird. The drinks
are warm, flat and expensive; no ice, in plastic bendy glasses that slop and slosh all
over the goddamn place. Small, sweaty, stinking toilets awash with shit and piss, loo
paper strewn everywhere except in the dispenser where you’d like to find it, and a
queue a mile long of drug-fucked queens waiting to use the one of only two lock-ups
that actually ‘lock up.’ Two at a time. What was the last traditional pub in a working-
class residential street that was lined with houses and shops that are long since gone
has managed to survive the brutal urbanisation that saw off many of similar
establishments in the area. This gaff modernised, stayed with it, moved with the times;
Inasmuch as they just ripped out the red velvet seating and antique, intricately carved
fittings, wired up a few flashing lights, blacked out the whole interior (windows and
all) and knocked together a raised plywood box (black) that since housed a variety of
ubiquitous fat DJ drag-queens over the subsequent years, spouting the same old
offensive gags in the same old sorry dress wearing the same old matted wig.
If you Google-Earth Kennington Lane in Vauxhall, you will see a lush, arboured park
called Spring Gardens (known locally as the Knoll) hemmed in on one side by an
elevated mainline rail track that once served the continent, under which are seedy gay
sex bars and saunas, and on the other a dodgy council estate and all the anti-social
problems that come with such a forgotten place. Right on the corner of this oasis is
one curved, solitary, desolate building that still stands against all odds. The last
remaining rotten molar in an otherwise toothless mouth, with railway arches for gums,
and a tongue of rolling green hills that were fashioned from the rubble of countless
demolitions. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, an
institution on the London gay scene that is even older than the considerable average
age of its combined patrons. By weeknights, it’s a weird, quirky establishment that
attracts only the alternative, avant-garde punter.. Those skinny fellers with bushy
ginger beards, checked shirts and Elvis Costello glasses wearing tiny jeans that looks

3. 3
like they just shit themselves. This place is the hub of a self-obsessed, self-absorbed,
self-promoting clique. Affected, but harmless enough. They call the entertainment
shows they put on there burlesque performance art. That’s one way of putting it.
Still though, every single Sunday without exception it explodes into a middle-aged
‘bear’ fest.
Packed to the blackened-out rafters, it’s always one-in-one-out soon after the place
opens its tiny double doors guarded by a snarling, gargantuan old-school bouncer.
Straight, he just doesn’t get it, what the hell is going on with these poofs. On Bank
Holidays, the fidgety, coked-up line of potential punters is hopelessly long, even in the
worst of weather. Inside, the ‘chosen few,’ the couple of hundred muscled, fat,
shirtless men that were savvy enough to get there early dance and twirl, cavorting and
lip-synching to Kylie, Madonna, Donna Summer and the like. The inadequate
extractor fans can hardly cope, blades straining, buried under decades of thick dust,
pumping out thick, dense, damp ‘disco-smoke’ that’s laden with body-odour and
acrid, chemical ecstasy farts. No one can explain why this place enjoys endless
unfaltering popularity every single Sunday, year in year out. It just does.
Day turned into night. It was getting messy. These two had been out all day. What
started off as a quick drink ended up a drug-fuelled full-on Sunday Session. They
began at the Griffin, a pretty, compact free-house, surprisingly genteel for what was
basically a backstreet boozer. In years gone by this would have been a sister ship to
the RVT. A perfect venue for a quiet Sunday pint, but those first few pints give you a
taste for it.
Playing hard to get like two housewives flirting with a plate of French fancies, the two
men dithered over whether they should have that last one for the road that would send
them over the tipping point to a full-on late night out. on a Sunday. Especially at the
RVT.
Next thing they knew, they were on the phone to their dealer, and traipsing through
one of the busiest intersections in South London, a worn out, soulless route, on a sure-
fire way to hell come Monday. Nothing unusual about it then, aside from the fact that
Gary had an interview to go to first thing, but that was hours away.
When you’re high you dance to anything and don’t even pay that much attention to
the music, but the Macarena was the last straw. They pushed through the teeming
mass and stopped for air at the end of the dance floor. Toilets to the left., bar to the
right, exit straight ahead. Dave looked at Gary who was screwing his eyes up to try
and focus on his watch. He knew that this madman expression that Gary was wearing
was not a good sign. Guessing he wouldn’t get a straight answer, Dave said
‘What time is it?’
‘Line time.’ said Gary.
Dave tried to resist temptation.
‘Come on, love. You’ve got that interview tomorrow. You haven’t even washed your
shirt yet.’

4. 4
Gary was frustrated. Of course, Dave was right. As usual. Always the sensible one.
Gary tried to convince himself that stretching the night out just a little bit more was
doable. This fucking interview. He did want this job. They really should go home. His
rationale made sense at the time. Surely, it couldn’t have been later than eleven. He
didn’t need to be up for another seven hours. Two more here and five in bed. Five is
enough sleep. He was having way too much fun. It had been one of those fantastic
impromptu nights that was still going strong. He had been cavorting and lip-synching
with the rest of them and had no intention of throwing in the towel just yet as
irresponsible as it might have been
Gary took Dave’s’ hand and led him to the toilet. Its smell on this warm summer night
was particularly unpleasant. The pills that were going around were strong, which
didn’t help either. They eventually made it into the lock-up. Gary took out his keys.
Although his vision was poor and his hands were a touch on the shaky side, when it
came to taking drugs a miraculous calm came over him.. Like a machine, he dug the
key deep into a little plastic self sealing bag and lifted out a thick white pile of
Charlie. Dave lowered his head to it and sniffed it right up. Gary could feel the heat
from Dave's sweating head. He could see the effect instantly. Eyes closed, Dave
leaned his head against the refreshingly cold damp tiles.
‘Fuck Dave, you look so fucking sexy when you’re on it,' Gary said/
Not wanting to get left ‘below,’ he impatiently delivered himself the same big hit to
his flaring right nostril. Suddenly he had ‘business’ to attend to. Dave’s eyes were still
closed when he felt his boyfriend grab his hand and thrust it onto his exposed hard-on.
Gary shook the bag and felt how full it was. He shook his balls and felt how full they
were. Plenty to go around.
‘Fuck it,’ said Gary to himself, yanking Dave’s jeans down framing his big white
builder’s arse. Dave offered no resistance.
‘Go on then.’ he said.
They were still high and still rampant as they left the RVT at chucking out time gone
midnight. The summer air was still warm as they walked the short distance home hand
in hand through Vauxhall park. Drugged up. Loved up. A little pair of lovebirds head
over heels and crazy in love.
So, the party’s over. Eventually. The two happy dancing bears eventually become two
sleepy bears. Two zopiclones and half a xanax each later, and there they are. Like two
pieces of chicken in a warm tortilla wrap. Two spoons in a draw. Cuddling and
nuzzling. Dave’s butt adorned with an empty sachet of lube stuck to it wedged firmly
in Gary’s lap. As cosy as two fleas in a bulldogs armpit. Happy as Larry. Romeo and
Juliet. Margaret and Dennis. Fluffy snores whistling through blocked up, coked-up
noses. Little white flakes on their flushed, rosy cheeks, little white unties strewn on
the floor. Al Parker porn still whirring around in the VHS. Tracey Emin bed sheets
that tell the tale of the World’s Greatest Lover Story in Glorious Technicolor.

5. 5
Moonlight kissing the peaceful faces of two men in love. Shame Gary was too fucked
to plug his phone in.

6. 6
CHAPTER 1
Gary overslept. He'd tripped and cussed as he 'got ready' in record time, beating his
personal best yet again. The tube was typically packed for a Monday morning rush
hour, but he had developed a skill of being able to sleep standing up. You see it a lot
on the London Underground. He managed to doze off for some needed sleep just two
stops before he had to get of the stuffy, stifling carriage. The whole morning had been
a struggle. His somatic regulatory systems were in meltdown. His back felt liked it
was being blowtorched, burning under his suit jacket, and the itchy hair clippings that
remained from his rapid, dodgy emergency self-cut to contain his thick but balding
barnett were glued to his head with sweat. He had been reluctant first to take off his
jacket because of his unironed shirt, not that ironing it would have been much use. It
was translucent now. He gave himself a quick once-over. His tattoos and body hair
were visible through the polyester and cotton mix. He had arrived at his Final
Destination. Or at least he felt like it was. As he stood on the platform to compose
himself, the rush of air from the departing train chilled his bones. His confidence
faltered. He contemplated for a minute walking over to the opposite platform,
heading home and chucking the hairy, sweaty stinking towel in. He attempted
mopping his thick brow with a damp tissue; all that he had on him. It became
saturated in seconds, and the sweat just ran south, reddening his already blood-shot
eyes, disintegrating, depositing tiny while rolls of paper that caught in his whiskers
and wedged deep in the crevices of his craggy face.
Oblivious, Gary began the drudging half mile walk or so to the prison. He didn’t have
a clue where he was supposed to be going. You would think that an institution like
HMP Wormwood Scubswould have a clearly signed route from the nearest tube
station especially given that there is absolutely nothing else there but a sprawling
council estate. There was no one at the station to ask for directions. He decided to
follow the steady stream of women that surely must be visiting their loved ones. Why
else would anyone have any other reason to get off at such a depressing place? Gary
slipped in unnoticed at the back of this chain-smoking, teetering entourage of shamed
mothers, WAGs, gangsters’ molls and mohawked kids. The procession led its merry
way through the backstreets of the grey estate, but drew no attention from the natives.
Like cows in a field next to the M25, they just get used to it. A quick turn left onto
Du Cane Road and there it was. The Big Top. HMP Wormwood Scrubs.
This place is a bit like Las Vegas. Nothing can prepare you for the shock of emotion
that rocks you when you experience it first hand for yourself. You’ve seen it on TV,
read the novels and biographies that are set there. It’s featured in countless dramas
and documentaries but finding yourself slap bang in front of it is a whole different
game. The arsehole of East Acton. Just being on the outside of it, Gary couldn’t help
but feel intimidated. Surely that must have been the intention of the architect that

7. 7
designed it; to scare the shit out of anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves
confined within its four symmetric, geometric, insurmountably high perimeter walls.
The prison was created in 1891, and built on land donated to the prison service by the
Church of England. Designed by prison 'reformist' General Sir Edmund Du Cane, it
was constructed entirely by convicts who even made the millions of bricks on site by
hand. Digging your own grave, so to speak. In true Christian spirit, the church
imposed a caveat that there were to be no executions within the prison grounds,
although many have since died at their own hands or the hands of others over the
years. Usually, these were ‘hangers,' lonely unfortunate bastards that couldn’t face the
reality of yet another pointless day in the life of their own pointless existence. Some
were ‘wets,’ referring to the blood that pumps from slashes in the skin inflicted by
honourable muggers and murderers who saw themselves as vigilantes, hell-bent on
achieving justice through a warped morality by terrifying, maiming and killing
paedophiles, known, suspected or otherwise. It gave them an unchallenged
opportunity to gain status by torturing those who had no allies or friends. No
witnesses. No consequences. Easy prey. In some prisons, paedophiles are ‘nonced-
off.’ Segregated. They’re known as VPs. Vulnerable prisoners. Not as vulnerable as
their victims though. Scubswas much more progressive, however. Turns out that when
they were all locked up on the same wing, this twisted species of humankind used to
get together, form allegiances and network: exchange phone numbers and erotic
stories of child-torture. At Scubsthey are interspersed throughout the prison
community, creating a breeding ground for suspicion, mistrust and violence. If you
ever encounter a con who’s been banged up for the first time who's over fifty, he’s
usually a paedophile.
A battered sign audaciously said ‘Welcome to HMP Wormwood Scrubs'. Apart from
the ugly pathetic excuse for a concrete, tiered floral display (which looked more like a
planted-up fountain from a 1970s civic building) there was nothing welcoming about
it. Two adjacent doors split the procession. Visitors on the left, prison staff to the
right. Gary brought up the rear. Screws and civilians. He stuffed his wet arms back
into his cold, wet jacket. In an attempt to conquer his nerves tried to make contact
with those ahead. Get a feel for the place, say hello, and give off some positive
energy. Subconsciously, he was looking for feedback that he was duping those around
him into thinking that he was straight, drugs wise. They were definitely motley. Every
size, shape, colour and hairstyle, not one common denominator except the identical
miserable, depressed expression on their faces. He did manage to catch the eye of a
pretty female office. Black, young, petite, her size eclipsed by the two huge female
officer Rottweilers that flanked her. She averted his gaze instantly, and made that kind
of smile where you press your lips together in a straight line. Neither a smile nor a
frown. The most versatile of expressions. You can use it to acknowledge a colleague
you pass in the corridor whose mother has just died, or when the gang of rowdy naffs
in a rough-arse bar weigh you up as you walk in. Anywhere. It’s a one-size-fits-all,

8. 8
neutral, kind of smile-thing that can actually mean anything you want it to. When
you’re in a paranoid state of drug-induced insecurity, it is the last thing that you need.
Gary thought that she could tell he was still buzzing. Of course, she couldn't. Even if
she could she wouldn’t have given a damn. On duty she's seen every face on every
drug.
Now it was Gary’s turn to present himself at the hatch. He peered through riot-proof
glass that was so thick it looked like it distorted the face female officer known as
Sausage Hands sitting behind it. She nodded to indicate her willingness to enter into
some sort of dialogue, then, annoyingly, as the phone rang she raised one of her huge
fat hands to silence Gary before he had begun to speak, and used the other to pick up
the handset. He was surprised that she had such a high-pitched voice for such a large,
robust woman. She hardly spoke at all, just muttering single-syllable responses, while
simultaneously looking at Gary. His temporary paranoia got worse, convinced that the
caller was inquiring as to why the wankered bloke in the dodgy bouncer's monkey suit
was doing even trying to enter a prison in such a state. He kept calm and carried on..
She left the phone off the hook and, judging by the speed at which she moved shuffled
off without any sense of urgency. Her dark empty chair was more reflective than the
off-white shirt she was wearing. Gary saw his own manic face staring back at him. By
the time Sausage Hands had shuffled back with considerable effort (she’d had to bend
down for something) Gary had managed to wrestle his brow down to a more
convemtional expression, unwittingly exposing the grains of tissue that were
previously concealed in the lines of his brow. She saw them and thought he was a bit
weird, but no more than anyone else who worked there.
‘Yes’ she squeaked.
Gary peeled his tongue from the roof of his mouth.
‘I've come to see Ellen Marcelo’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘ Interview for barbering
lecturer.’
She pushed her glasses up her slippery nose. She was sweating too, all that fat,
exertion and hair weaves trapping the heat like a string vest.
‘Have you got your ID with you?’ she said.
He handed it to her and watched as she duly recorded the details on some sort of
official-looking book, the pen totally enveloped. Bubble writing.. This was a timid,
pretty cutsie of a girl trapped in a heffer of an officer's body. She stuffed a list of
contraband and prohibited items under the glass. Some were obvious. Knives, guns,
drugs and the like. Some were more intriguing; chewing gum and blu-tac, which can
be used to make imprints of keys, and mobile phones, which might allow convicts to
continue conducting their criminal activities or to continue intimidating victims from
within the jail. Pornography was also prohibited, which made no sense. Surely, this
was the one place where porn should be readily available.
‘Do you have any of these items with you? she said.
Gary produced his phone from his briefcase.

9. 9
‘I need to take that from you. It's an offence to bring it inside you know.’
How could he not know. Unforgiving signs informed perpetrators of the
consequences of up to two years imprisonment.
‘You’ll get a tally. Give it back to us on the way out,' she said.
He handed it over just as Dave phoned. He'd not been the most amicable that his good
nature normally afforded thanks to Gary's irresponsibility yet again, but he was feeling
guilty about the bickering that that had gone on and had called to show some
solidarity. Gary hadn’t turned it off. She looked at the phone’s screen, inviting two
other female officers huddled around it to have a gander at a picture of Dave flexing
his muscles and showing off his naked arse which popped up every time he called.
Any form of laughter was a rarity in Scrubs, so everyone wanted to see what the
commotion was about. Gary began to sweat again.
‘Wait in there’ she said.
One hand clicked the mouse that operated the electronic sliding door, the other
mopped tears of laughter from her plate-like face. It slid open, revealing an area that
looked like a public toilet. It smelled like one too. Dirty tiles clung precariously to
overbearing, windowless walls. Gary walked in with trepidation as the door behind
him rolled shut fast. The. door at the opposite end of the room opened like a safari
park enclosure. It smelt like one too.
By an act of pure chance, he found himself ensnared in a security check. They occur
sporadically in all prisons, but not too frequently so as to lull those that work there
into a false sense of security. They leave it just enough time that you forget that you
might be searched and scrutinised on your way in, so that you forget to stash that
mobile phone or ounce of hash somewhere safe by' plugging it,' they call it. Use your
imagination. When new staff start work at Scrubs, they are subject to induction. How
to fend off a pack of gang of psychopaths with your bare hands and a cold stare. How
to cut down someone who is hanging from the ceiling. Unbelievably, how to lock and
unlock a door. How to grass your workmates up for not wiping their arses properly
without them ever finding out it was you. The whole thing is a boring waste of time.
The only thing that gets the rookies excited about induction week is the visit to the
visit centre. Here, you are privy to a behind-the-scenes look at the huge bank of
cameras and recording equipment that monitor every twitch, itch and scratch by the
cons and their cohorts The monitoring officer proudly shows how the dozens of
remote control cameras can zoom in so close to the faces of the visitors, that they can
clearly see the tiniest fleck of cocaine clinging to the inside of a nostril. He
demonstrates. A gigantic tarantula of a false eyelash fills several of the screens. He
then gets out his 'piece de resistance.' A video tape of previously recorded ‘passovers.’
Visitors passing drugs and other contraband on to cons. No one can fail to be
impressed at the speed and agility of the most competent plugger. They can get a
mobile phone up their arse in seconds. Of course, the ones featured are the thwarted,
amateur failures. The officers on duty dotted around the perimeter of the room
descend like dogs and drag the poor bloke off to meet his fate, usually time on the

10. 10
block. Solitary confinement. The finale of his spectacular is one particular con whose
girlfriend had trained her two year old son to sit on his daddy’s knee and do the
plugging on his daddy's behalf. God only knows who she got to rehearse this
feat. Let's just say the nerves got to the kid,. Stage-fright. He blew it. The tape makes
shocking viewing (but nowhere near as shocking as the ‘unseen editors choice;’ a
smorgasbord of tits, arses and camels' toes of the hot tarty totty that he would often
wank off to on many occasion as soon as the day shift goes home)
Staff are subject to the same level of searches as the visitors. The officers are usually
looking for the same items too. It’s a highly lucrative business. Although the majority
of cons at Scubsare petty criminals, some are organised gangsters that still manage
their outside businesses with startling efficiency considering where they are. All credit
to them, it must be difficult to ‘work from home’ every single day and keep a lid on
your business that consists of a nasty bunch of hard ruthless bastards that would sell
their own kids if the price was decent enough (and throw in the baby-mother for a
little extra if she was getting too full of herself or too old). These criminals don’t ever
show up at their own office, and yet their henchmen turn up and carry out their
business dutifully and faithfully, even though they know there's not even a remote
chance that their boss is going to be there. Wheeling and dealing. Chasing and hiding.
Maiming and killing. These pros are few and far between in Scubsthough. Category B.
No Jack "the Hat" McVite or "Mad Frankie" Fraser there. They did bang Pete Doherty
there for a very short stretch, the Chapel is still graced with Noel Coward's piano that
was extravagantly brought in for his personal entertainment during his one month
stretch, and Charlie Bronson has famously graced their filthy wings on more than one
occasion. The long-termers are scoffing bastards at the lower-class of prisoner that has
been handed a short sentence. ‘Popped in for a shower and a shit,’ They’ve got a cell
for an office, and their PA is a screw. He doesn’t want her to sit on his knee and take
a letter though. He wants a phone with accessories. Never in the box though, for some
reason.. Any fuckwit mule that will risk their career and liberty and bring it in for
them is fit for purpose.
The cons still have to let them think that the officers are in charge, show respect, but
everyone knows who’s running the joint. The 'Rons and Reggies' need drugs,. Not for
their own personal use though. They're way too savvy for that. Inside, drugs is
currency. Who controls the drugs controls the wing.. Get the stupid bastards snorting
out of the palm of your hand. In prison, drugs is power.
Once the lag screw bites the bait, he’s well and truly hooked. Real pros are
condicionados supremos. They’ve had years of practice of drawing innocent well-
intentioned, upright men into their lair. And many prison officers have also fallen at
their mercy. Few can resist the lure of the child-catching con.

11. 11
On the other side of the second sliding door stood a real bruiser. Legs apart. Cheap ill-
fitting washable suit. No smile, no friendly warmth, just a point in the direction to go
and enough bespectacled eye contact to make you shudder
The workers are normally moved in platoons as the weary army arrives in drips and
drabs for duty, broken and uncomplaining, familiar after years of service, but on this
occasion, it just so happened that Gary found himself all alone. He’d just missed the
rush of new the new shift. As such, there wasn’t another procession to follow so Gary
kept on going in the direction of the bruiser’s pointing hand. The door he should’ve
gone through was closed, and so he ended up mistakenly walking right into the
sacrosanct Security HQ. No one, especially a civilian, had the right to just barge into
the heart of the prison unannounced and unexpected. Les was having none of it. She
was a black widow, and when she saw sweating, nervous Gary her web resonated
irresistably. All eyes in the department were watching the Drama of the Day unfold.
Gary looked down at her name badge and not her ample bosom as she incorrectly
thought, a sublime example of nominative determinism if ever there was one.
She bristled as she approached him
‘Yes?’ she said.
It took two attempts to conquer his stammer that occurred after a good night out,
particularity when he was nervous.
‘Erm, I'm here for an interview. Barbering lecturer?’ he said.
Les was excited. New face in town. Maybe this time this guy could be a major
security threat, or, even better, a mystery-shopper style set up to test the security of the
prison. You were graded then. If Les played her cards right, she could get a great
score from this, and at last, an overdue promotion of thirty plus years of futile loyal
service. Her breasts that naturally hung low on her curved spine began to rise as she
revelled in this potential opportunity.
‘Oh no, you shouldn’t even be here. This isn’t even the right building. Who told you
to come here?’ she said.
‘The bloke at the gate in the suit. He pointed this way,’ Gary said.
Les wheezed as she tried to work out what was happening.
‘Glasses, black suit. Big guy.’ He said ‘big’ but he really meant ‘fat.’
Les was onto to something. She knew security inside and out. She knew that the
security governor that was on duty that morning was female. Alicia. . She didn’t have
to walk the factory floor. Her job was a big one, one of the most powerful in the
prison, but she liked to see what her department was doing at grass roots level.
Undercover boss. Alicia liked to get her hands dirty. Les worked out what happened,
but sadistically remained silent on the matter.
As she escorted Gary back to the gate, the bruiser in the suit turned to face them. Les’
voice became formal. Clipping her cockney accent did very little to disguise it's
coarseness, but after all, this was the security governor, Number 3 in the prison. Les
wanted to impress.
‘Excuse me. This gentlemen was looking for Education, Alicia,' she said.

12. 12
Alicia? Gary got it. Never before had he met someone whose name was so
incongruous with their persona. What he thought was a real bruiser of a man turned
out to be a woman, technically speaking at least. She eyeballed Gary’s temporary,
and therefore inferior id badge.
'Mr. Armstrong. You need to go this way please. We’re having a security check today.
Just a formality,' she said.
It turned out to be anything but.
Les looked at Gary with a knowing, vindictive smile.
'Good luck.' she said.
She rushed back to the office to tell them the funny story of the sweaty barber that
thought that Alicia Frook (aka freak) was a man.
The security room was like airport security, but without the mile-long queue. No one
had been through that morning for some time, so the assembled officers halted their
chit-chat and focused their attention on Gary as he entered the room. He followed the
laminated instructions and placed all his belongings in the tray which was once white
but now dirty grey (apart from a ruby red false nail that had fallen from somewhere),
soiled from the incessant diarrhoea empted from the bowels of people’s pockets and
handbags.
Once he passed through the metal detector, another guard beckoned him over for a pat
down, Rubber gloved hands churned their way over Gary’s body, who flushed with
embarrassment at its intimate diligence. By the time his unnecessarily long frisk was
completed, the gloves glistening with his own sweat. Gary was relieved it was over.
‘Thank you sir’ said the officer. 'This way please.’
What he saw in the next room stopped his heart. Sniffer dogs. Gary would always feel
an illogical sense of guilt when he had nothing to be concerned about, even when he'd
pull up to a cop car at the lights on his way to nowhere important, but now his
thoughts were frantic about what he'd taken last night.. He’d had Charlie, ketamine,
ecstasy. Fuck, What hadn't he had? His head was crushed with anxiety.
;What if they smell gear on my credit cards?'
'What if there are empty bags in my wallet?'
'What if they can smell it in my sweat. Christ, there's enough of it now.'
Gary really began to regret not making time to prepare himself properly, or to at least
have showered to remove any traces on him.
It was all too late.
The dog handler came over with the dog on a leash.
‘Can you stand on the cross on the floor and raise your arms to the side please sir?' he
said.
The cocky spaniel came bounding over, encouraged to sniff Gary's person. Like many
of the jobsworths in Scrubs, the dog took its work very seriously. It would sacrifice its
own life in exchange for a bounce of a punctured dirty rubber ball. The officer didn’t
seem to mind that it was caked in the dogs own saliva that spun and splattered as it

13. 13
was bounced yet again at Gary's feet. Gary did mind however, that Lucy ,as he later
learned, was shoving her wet nose right up his butt-crack. She followed the clicking
finger to the front of Gary's crotch. She could smell the residual remnants of last
night's passion still evident in Gary’s groin. Irresistible. Her fat docked arse was
wagging and twerking, her nose dripping and snorting. This was definitely unusual
behaviour that raised the suspicion of the officers. Gary’s pores went into overdrive.
Large visible patches of fresh sweat appeared under his arms and chest like molten
lard seeping onto parchment paper. The Dog-Screw narrowed his eyes,. Lucy was
never wrong. Something was amiss. And this was a stranger in the camp. A new face.
One to watch. Lucy was watching too. To her it was just playing a game. She had no
idea of how much Gary despised her at that moment. Many lives had been ruined just
because of her fixation with a rancid rubber ball. The officer turned his back and
radioed for assistance.
‘Righto Mr Armstrong.' he said in an official ‘I've got important work to do’ voice.
'The dog has indicated that there is a possibility that you might have forbidden
substances on you. Do you have any such items on your person?’
Gary said no. The officer had heard that many times before. The assistance promptly
arrived at the kill. He was slight, grey hair, Celtic tattoo. He was hungry for it,
pursed lipped, pupils dilated with the excitement of it all.
‘Okay sir,' he said. 'It is policy that we carry out a detailed search in situations like
this. Do you give your permission? If you decline, we have the power to detain you
and hand you over to the police'
Gary nodded in agreement, glad that neither of them were in any way attractive. That
could have proved embarrassing, especially after the Viagra he'd taken last night.
The officer without a dog carried on.
'Please remove your clothes down to your underpants and place them on this table,' he
said.
This proved difficult. His clothes were sticking to his skin and the only chair in the
room was occupied by Dog-Screw. He hopped and staggered as he tried to pull his
pants off. Dog-Screw made no effort to offer the chair.
As None-Dog snapped on a pair of latex gloves Gary's sphincter contracted tight. He
stood motionless, his nervous breath becoming louder the more he tried to control it in
the silent, airless room, Dog-Screw was sitting back and enjoying the ride, his hands
clasped behind his head. His eyes were locked on Gary’s, whose own eyes looked
straight ahead, his hands spontaneously guarding his vulnerable tackle.
He left Gary standing there without dignity while he spent what felt like an eternity
searching through Gary's sweaty clothes but disappointingly found nothing suspect at
all. He'd searched their hems, turned out the pockets, wiped Gary's credit cards on the
thigh of his black trousers which produced noting. Luckily, his wallet was soggy and
damp. No sign of anything there,

14. 14
Dog-screw was confused. Lucy was never wrong. Something must have been getting
her revved up so much. He dropped his line of sight to Gary’s crotch as did None-
Dog. Great minds think alike.
'Ok Mr. Armstrong. I'm going to have a look at your underpants. Please raise your
hands to the sides,' he said.
He knelt down on his knees to perform the examination. Gary was mistaken in
assuming with confidence that there was thing incriminating in there. He was wrong.
He talked himself through the ordeal.
‘Come on, son, nearly there. Eyes straight ahead. Remember. Show no fear.’
He didn't. It was none-dogs eyes that showed fear. A great deal of it. From the corner
of his eye, he caught the officer trying to control his recoil, revulsion emanating from
his face. Gary began to panic as the officer covered his mouth with the inside of his
elbow.
He felt crucifying embarrassment even though he didn’t have a clue why. Did the
screw think that his sweaty pants were wet with piss or something?
It was worse. In his haste to rush out without showering in the morning, Gary had put
on last night's underpants mistakenly inside out. Dog-Screw thought that they were
also back to front as well. They weren’t. The entire front area was caked in a naturally
occurring dark coloured substance that occurs from the joys of (particularly coked-up)
anal sex. A surprise brown paper package wrapped up in string. The fluidity of his
sweat had created an unusual tie-dye effect. Think ink block test. Velvet chocolate
watermark satin. In twenty six years of service, never had None-Dog witnessed such a
disgusting pair of underpants that miraculously had skid marks not only on the
outside, but at the front too! The filthy bastard. It was now his turn to gulp. Time for a
sharp exit.
‘Ok, Mr Armstrong, we’ve completed our search. On your way. We’ll leave you to
dress yourself.' he said.
The two of them left post-haste with Lucy on an inappropriately tight leash.
As Gary sat down on dog-screws chair, he glanced down and was subject to Non-
Dog’s trauma first hand.
‘Oh my fucking god’ he said out loud. ‘Please. Kill me now.
It took a good while for him to lift his head from his hands.
Dog-screw's relationship with Lucy was never quite the same after that. Dirty bitch.
There was a small silver lining to this big brown cloud, All the palaver had taken well
over an hour in total, a large proportion of which was with Gary standing in his
underpants. This, coupled with adrenaline, gave enough time to finally work most of
the recreational drugs out of his system. He stopped off at a toilet to compose himself,
rehydrate and flush out his gasping liver. He confronted his reflection in the mirror.
Oh hello! Surprise. A nice one at last. He looked ok. Kind of. Gone was the madman
face and dripping skin. Could what was left resemble the look of a law-abiding,
professional teacher who wanted to show these evil people the error of their ways?

15. 15
Maybe it just could. Maybe Gary could get away with this. He rinsed his face with
cold water that condensed his skin. He blotted it dry with nasty green paper towels
that chafed his open pores. Still. It felt nice. He felt refreshed. Confident, even. He
straightened his tie, and with a final wash of his hands made his way up one flight of
stairs to the room where the interviews were being held. One interview actually.
There was only one candidate. No surprise really. Who else would want to work in the
most miserable depressing environment that there is in the UK apart from David
Cameron?
He rapped on the door.
‘Come!’
It wasn't the friendliest of voices. It also sounded strangely familiar.
‘Good afternoon Alicia. We meet again’ he sighed.
Alicia smiled. The guy that thought she was a geezer eh? It had taken only a matter of
minutes for her to discover this tragic mistaken identity. Alicia had overheard Les
wheezing out the tale in the security office. She wasn’t offended in the slightest,. She
actually liked it. She ‘passed’ many times and it always gave her a kick. She loved
seeing the embarrassment it caused when the truth came out; a kind of power trip. Les
had become visibly mortified when Alicia had interrupted the conversation. She might
not have the cock that real men had, but you don’t fuck with her. No one ever had.
Even as a little girl, she loved the ‘tomboy’ look. Of course, not all tomboys turn out
to be gay, They ‘grow out of it.’ But this one didn’t. She grew up into a classic diesel
dyke. She never even thought of sleeping with a man, even during the experimental
phase during puberty, were many gay people’s first sexual experience arose through
denial, fraught with unease, shame and often revulsion, tragically trying to become
something that they weren't. For many, being gay can be a shameful, lonely, fruitless
way of life; ostracised by society, they often get victimised and damaged by the
coming out process, which sadly affirms their already low self esteem. Psychologists
call this ‘internalised homophobia.’
This wasn't a condition that Alicia had ever suffered from. . She never took any shit
from anyone. She took after her father. He was a member of parliament for Bromley
and Chislehurst, having reached the impressive rank of commander in the police force
for twenty one years. He’d seen it all. His views were right wing in every sense. He
was a man to be reckoned with, opinionated and domineering, especially over his
downtrodden wife. She taught French in the local high school although she wasn't. As
a kid, Alicia was always polite enough to the middle-class women that socialised in
their tastefully furnished living room in the afternoons when she came home sweaty
and red faced in her hockey kit from school. She was an only child. It wasn’t planned
that way. It was just the way that things turned out. It certainly wasn’t from lack of
effort, She was subject to regular servicing from her virile husband on a regular basis
for the duration of their entire lives together, and she loved that. She loved her little
girl too, and her happiness was all that mattered. Her father loved her too. He didn't
get the lesbian thing though, but that never became an obstacle as their relationship

16. 16
developed into Alicia's adulthood. She always held her own, so to speak, and he was
proud of her. They spent many happy hours at his bar of his golf club nursing pints
together with all his cronies; judges, barristers, second hand car dealers and successful
criminals. She laughed and joked with the best of them. They could see strong traits of
themselves in each other, which they both egotistically cherished. She was raised in a
loving stable home, she adored her parents, and they adored her. Consequently, she
experienced very little lesophobia in her developmental years. She was bright too. The
social standing of her parents and her self-assurance gained her considerable
popularity in school. Anyone who took issue with gay people wouldn’t pick on her
unless they were on some sort of masochistic death wish. If anyone did have a
problem they certainly didn’t show it. Protected by the status of her parents and her
formidable form she had a comparatively smooth ride to puberty, (not even phased by
being thrown out of the girl guides. That was for kids and Christians, and at that time
she had to wear a skirt and besides, she wasn't happy to be associated with any
organisation with the word ‘girl’ in it. Girls were for fags).
It was at university that she acquired a taste for power that was soon to become an
addiction. She had an upright if somewhat misplaced passion for justice which soon
became opportunity to display her might and intimidate people. She joined
Greenpeace and was part of the original line-up at Greenham Common nuclear
disarmament protests. As with her father, her own blue line of morality was a lot
thinner than she would have liked to have thought as she looked to the world beyond
her own. It was government, democracy and people-power that decided what was
right and wrong, and she revelled in mouthing off her increasingly right wing opinions
to whoever happened to dare challenge even the smallest aspect of them. Frequently,
people backed down, some even feigned agreement just to rid themselves out of the
awkward situation that they found themselves in. She mistook this as affirmation of
her views, which as time went on became more and more intolerant and bigoted. A
truly conservative lesbian..
She joined the prison service as soon as she graduated from St Mary's with a 2;1 in
Sports Therapy. With no other siblings, her mother had hoped that Alicia would grow
out of track suits and training shoes.’ She wanted grandchildren of her own, as any
parent would, but the hope diminished day by day as Alicia got butcher. It was prison
that was Alicia’s baby, an environment where it was okay to be bastard and get away
with it. If you weren't, you wouldn’t get any respect from the cons and besides , she
liked to treat people like shit, and this was a place where you could do just that and
still be seen in a favourable light. In her eyes, she was an intrepid lion tamer. In
everyone else's eyes she was a cunt. It was a shame that no one ever had the balls to
tell her.
She took to her vocation like a crack-whore to heroin. Prison was a place where she
could fulfil her dreams of wielding unhealthy total control making people shake at her
very presence. Her first post was at Holloway. Famous for its child-killing, evil
residents, it was home to the darkest of the fairer sex. Here, she was immersed with

17. 17
people of the same ilk; big, strong, tough women, both staff and inmates, who feared
Alicia from the moment they saw her.
It is only when you move amongst a people of your own kind that your individual
differences really show up. She showed remarkable leadership skills, and moved
effortlessly up the promotional ladder, and by the time she took up her first non-
uniformed (right handed-fly suit) post as Security Governor she was a human
cannonball that annihilated anyone or anything that stood between her and getting her
own way. She knew what was best. Power is success She needed it. .
The cons call everyone else ‘Guv.’ It shows respect, because after all you don’t know
who you’re speaking to in prisons half the time. You can't work out a person's prison
role by the way they present themselves. Civilians don't make any effort. No one
appreciates it, and walking around dressed up to the nines would only cause bitterness,
and, sordidly, even worse in the case of women workers; unwanted sexual attention.
The wings are full of iron open staircases and even the tiniest flash of a lacy gusset
could set off a serious sexual assault by men who were potential or convicted sex
attackers. It was prison policy for female workers to wear ‘non-sexual’ attire and
refrain from perfume when their work involves direct prisoner contact to avoid
unsolicited sexual advances. Obviously, the effect of frumpy women trudging the
wings in clumpy black sensible work shoes gave men no reason to make any effort
with their appearance. (The only exception was D wing governor, an African named
Humphrey Nkobi. Like Alicia, he was ferociously ambitious , fast-tracked through
positive discrimination policy to a rank unfitting to his lack of experience in the
service. He had never worked as prison officer, having come straight from completing
his masters in African Studies. His out-of-touch lack of experience at grass roots level
of prison management, youthful age, high level of education and received
pronunciation in a place that was staffed predominantly by working-class, older men
caused considerable resentment throughout his wing, and he overcompensated for this
by fluctuating between an incongruous combination of megalomaniac management
techniques and currying favour to gain popularity; arse-kicking then arse-licking. He
was determined though, you have to give him that. To visually assert his authority, he
power-dressed in Savile row shirts and city-boy pinstripe suits; matching tie and
braces for which there were no need as his impressively large pair of African buttocks
stretched the hand-stitched seat of his trousers to capacity.
So (apart from Humphrey) you really couldn't tell who was who down on the wings. It
could be just another relic-peddling, religious freak preying on the minds of the insane
or the needy, or it could be a new CARAT worker, a drugs counsellor, that could sway
your parole meeting, the one deciding factor in your favour that could determine your
early release. Desperate and manipulative, it was always better to be safe than sorry.
So ‘Guv’ it was. Interesting, this word also became a term of abuse. The prisoners
sometimes called each other ‘guv,’ in such instances this was solely to cause
maximum offence to their peers; in prison the ultimate insult.

18. 18
For Alicia though, now it was different. Now, the staff had to refer to her by her rank
Every time a lowly screw had to pass her in the lengthy corridors, he had to lower his
eyes and show his respect for her by addressing her as ‘guv,' for that is what she was.
Moist. As a kid, she had marvelled at the presence her father had when he entered a
room. Now she had the same power. With tits (albeit unsurprisingly small for a fat
bird.)

19. 19
CHAPTER 2
Ellen Marcelo strode over to the door and shook Gary's hand firmly. Then it was
Alicia’s turn. Gary nearly winced as she gripped his hand with unnecessary excessive
force. She said nothing, assuming that a cursory nod would be sufficient a welcome. .
The three all sat around a small office table. Ellen began the introductions.
‘Hello Gary, nice to see you today. I’m Ellen Marcelo. I'm the education manager for
Kensington and Chelsea College,' she said.
Gary smiled.
‘This is Alicia Frook. She is the Security Governor here at Scrubs.’
'We've already met,' he said.
Ellen pretended that she hadn't heard him.
‘Let me tell you a bit about what is happening with this course.’ said Ellen.
This was welcomed. He didn't have much to go on other than they wanted a lecturer
in barbering. That was all the recon he had on it. He had taught hairdressing for years
and had a huge amount of experience in his industry. He began working in the 80s for
a national chain, Alan Paul, a cheap and cheerful set-up of iconic 80s grey and pink
neon that had several hundreds of salons within the organisation. He moved on to
better, more technically advanced salons. He improved himself, and his career took
off in the 1990s. He bought his own place, employed some seventeen staff at one
point, but the pinnacle of his career was finalist in the British Hairdresser of the Year
awards. A fancy, black-tie do on Park Lane that nearly broke him. An acrimonious
relationship with his former boyfriend had left him fleeced, and now he found
himself vying for a job teaching in a prison, This was a lowly come-down, but Gary
was tough, and a prison job wasn't so bad He knew it wouldn't be boring, and the
kudos of working in a prison would give him extra pulling power. There were worse
jobs.
Ellen had a strong Brazilian accent, bit of a lisp (or maybe that was how it was
supposed to sound.) She too was robust, but in stark contrast Alicia, she was
voluptuous, sexy even. Maybe a couple of years younger than Gary’s forty-four, she
wore suitable Summer clothes for the day’s weather. Yellow pedal pushers whose
tightness left little to the imagination, and a white blousey t shirt, dressy though, with
frills here and there, nice deep cleavage on display and large, clanking shell-type
ethnicy earth tones matching bracelet and necklace, raffia wedges and a naughty whiff
of perfume.
‘So let me tell you what's going on here,' she said, 'our department delivers short
courses to prisoners that have just come to scrubs. where many of the inmates are just
getting used to prison life. This is a holding prison, so they come here often before
they are sentenced, and move on when they’ve been to court. There’s a high churn, so

20. 20
we don’t have them for very long, so we have to make sure that their time with us is of
benefit to them, We teach things like ESOL, [English to speakers of other languages],
IT, functional skills [numeracy, literacy, IT] Art, that kind of thing. We are trying to
introduce more vocational courses; things that they can use when they are released, so
barbering is ideal. We’ve never had this course before so you’d be the first one to
deliver it. We don’t even have a name for the barbershop yet. We thought that the new
tutor would hold a ballot. Involve the prisoners. How do you feel about that?’
Gary was momentarily distracted by yet more flakes of tissue wedged in his eyelashes.
He rubbed them off, pushing a fleck right into his eye while he tried to respond.
‘It’s a fantastic opportunity for me to get the course going exactly as I want it,. Of
course it’s a challenge, but the job satisfaction……’
Blah blah blah. He could hear himself wandering off into a verbal abyss. He started to
lose it. He’d been his own boss for a long time and wasn’t used to interviews. He
hadn’t needed to attend any for years..He sold up and came to university to study
psychology in London. He worked as a bouncer in the evenings. Hairdresser to
bouncer. Always one to do things differently. There aren’t many men who could take
such a contrasting transition of jobs in their stride, but he was a very different person
from the young skinny punk-rocker who walked into a salon in 1984 to ask if there
were any jobs going just so he could have his foot-long Mohican coloured for free.
(which they insisted on cutting off on the second day that he started work). Working
the doors was great fun for him. mostly gay bars where drugs and sex were on tap. He
was a good looking bloke and the London gay scene quickly grew fond of this affable,
quirky Northerner. He flirted with anything that came up to his door, but could
definitely come up with the goods when things got hairy. His managers always
appreciated him, and they took faith in his ability to protect their premises (no matter
how much Charlie he was on). He loved a joke, and took the piss out of the punters
regularly, especially the more game, flamboyant types who were quick to join in the
fun. He was once head doorman in a sex bar that was frequented by a whole z list of
celebrities. It had a makeshift darkroom in the week, and he loved to sneak in, shine
his torch on some famous newsreader or another on his knees amid the spunk and
shitty johnnies and say ‘Look who’s in the house!’ .
He was fat, muscled, (but never enough for his liking. A big hard torso was virtually
the only passport you needed to get anyone you liked into bed, aside from a massive
cock, and for a dirty bastard like Gary, he was well aware of this). He arms were
heavily tattooed patchy, old and mismatched, with no theme going on at all, (good job
you couldn’t see them too well under his densely hairy forearms). Of course,like most
gay guys, he had the staple bald head and beard. His was such due to the years of
taking steroids. To straights he was a fat bald old bloke making a bit of a tit dancing
with the kids whose denim crotches were down by their knees but to the gays he was a
bear, big bold and butch. Bouncing is not a job that you can do forever. Gary finished
at university at thirty-eight and looked to get his career going in another direction.
One where he could ‘put something back. ‘Make peoples lives’ better.’ He liked to

21. 21
think he was hard but he was really as soft as shit. Loud and coarse but a big-hearted
decent bloke, whose old ma loved him. Everyone's ma loved old Gary:
He had started rambling on about his work as a bouncer. He needed to show that
Alicia bitch that he wasn’t just another limp-wristed fag-hairdresser. It became
difficult to elaborate about this job without alluding to sex or drugs, and he started
jumping off track, and soon found himself waffling and repeating things. There were
no curtains on the windows and hot sunlight blazed through the dirty panes of glass..
This was getting complicated. The butch one was really putting him off.
The only way he could get control of the situation was doing something he wasn't so
good at and keep his mouth shut. The pause was uncomfortable, for Ellen and Gary at
least. They could both see that he was stressed out, and watched him getting hot under
the collar. Alicia sensed weakness. She wanted to let him know that she could see his
embarrassment and rub his nose in it.
‘It’s very warm in here, Graham. Why don’t you take your jacket off? I think I’ll join
you if you don’t mind,' she said.
They both took off their suit jackets. What was this 'Graham' thing though? He waited
fruitlessly for Ellen to put her straight, but like many other of minions, she didn’t dare.
She did cringe slightly, but it just wasn’t worth contradicting her. With Alicia, you
wouldn't know whether she made this error on purpose for some unfathomable,
twisted reason. Besides, Ellen had to work hard to persuade the regime (as it was
grandiosely termed) to consider this course and she frankly didn’t give a damn what
Alicia called him.
Having sharp scissors right on the wing was not a prospect that Alicia and her
department had found attractive, but Ellen was under immense pressure from
her own management to produce more vocational courses for which there was
greater funding. Her job depended on it. It was all about meeting targets. Like
politicians with their constituents, no one in the prison actually gives a shit
about the prisoners themselves. The previous Scubsgovernor was proud of
the fact that since his own recent incumbency he had reduced the feeding
costs of each con to below ￡1.50 per day, the first time since 1994.
Alicia took out her cufflinks and rolled her sleeves up past the elbow, an old habit
from years of complying with staff rules as a uniformed officer. Through his non-
watering eye, Gary made out a tiny compass-and-ink schoolroom tattoo on her left
forearm. Definitely Vauxhall Tavern barmaid material. She took control of the
meeting, simultaneously reading through Gary’s CV while searching for the tiniest
discrepancy that could entitle her to disapprove of his application. It was
disappointingly good, which stood at odds of what sat before her.

22. 22
‘Let me make one thing clear Graham. I am not happy at the idea of having a so-called
‘barbershop’ on the wing at all. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just another thing for my
men to worry about. We’ve got some dangerous prisoners here at Scrubs, and letting
them loose with scissors is a recipe for disaster if you ask me. But we’ve got a new
governor now. A new broom. Big on prisoner welfare. Heal the world; make it a better
place and all that. He reckons that the vocational courses that my colleague was
talking about gives them more opportunity to make something of their lives when
they’re on the outside. Fat chance, I say. I just see a potential mess, and I’m the one
who’s left trying to make sure that none of my officers get stabbed up in the process.
Let me tell you, mate. If there’s one cock-up on this, I’ll shut down this course quicker
than you can say ‘make mine a Brazilian.'
She was being funny in both senses of the word. He couldn’t work out how to
respond. He nervously scratched his head. Still worried of talking rubbish again, he
remained silent and waited for someone to say something. until Ellen stepped in.
‘Qualification wise, we see that you’ve got a lot of experience in delivering City and
Guilds qualifications to level three standard,' she said. 'This is only level 2. You’ve
taught that level as well, have you?
‘That’s not a problem,’ he said, ‘That was the same qualification that I was delivering
at my last teaching job, just with core units for ladies hairdressing not men’s.’
;Ah yes, your last teaching job looks very interesting, Can you tell me about that?’
Gary had been introduced to an organisation called Tooting Bec Training by an
agency, the same agency that took Gary to Scrubs. This was basically a money
making racket run by a loveable rogue and his partner, a real lady in every way but not
one you’d cross, if that makes sense. They managed to surround themselves with the
right people who had an innate gift of taking on feral kids in a destitute London
suburb who had survived an impoverished upbringing where no other education
institutions had succeeded in equipping them with any skills they needed to function
in society as adults so that they turned into young people who definitely had more
prospects than they had previously. It was two years of Gary’s life well spent. He was
proud of his achievements and enjoyed having something positive to talk about at last.
‘I was teaching hairdressing to kids with behavioural problems. Fourteen to eighteen.
ADD, on licence from tag, expelled from school, that sort of thing...'
Alicia interrupted.
‘Let me tell you now, mate,' she said, 'these aren’t naughty little girls. We’re talking
about damaged, vicious people, con men who’d sell you anthrax at the right price.
They’d slice up your granny for one hit of crack. Do you think you could cope with
that?’
In all honesty, he’d found the kids behaviour difficult at first. They’d been animals,
savouring the pleasure of butt-raping any new teachers that didn’t have the aptitude of
coping with such abominable behaviour. He'd managed to win them over soon enough
though. Surely the inmates at Scrubs couldn't be any harder to manage than that? He
spoke with a new-found feistiness that pleased Ellen, not so much Alicia.

23. 23
‘These were hardly naughty little girls Alicia. I’ve been attacked with a hammer, had
my classroom set on fire, had girls jealous boyfriends coming in and beating the hell
out of each other just because of stupid FaceBook statuses. Passing out on drugs.
Drunken kids, kids on crack, kids on the game, you name it. There were no officers
there to control the situation. I did it all on my own.’
They were both impressed, albeit Alicia grudgingly,.
‘I’m sure I’d cope with anything like that as well as anyone else in the same position.’
he said.
Alicia nodded her approval. Both he and Ellen were relieved that the tension in the
room was beginning to lift.
‘Yes,' Ellen said, 'I’ve got a feeling that you could handle what they throw at you. To
be honest, they are usually okay with civilians. Especially teachers. They know that
you are here to help them.’
Alicia spoke, smiling sinisterly.
‘It’s the officers that they hate. No love lost there.’
‘And besides, I don’t think you’d get much aggravation the way that you look,' Ellen
said. 'Hardly a typical barber!’
What the hell was a barber supposed to look like?
Ellen decided that she had heard enough, and closed the interview.
'Thank you so much for coming in,' she said, 'I'll be in touch within the week to let
you know if you've been successful or not.'
They all stood up. Alicia and Gary put their jackets on. They all shook hands again.
Gary was just relieved that the whole thing was over. He had no idea how well he had
done but there was nothing he could do now. He strode towards the door before
Alicia called him back.
'Graham, I think we've got the wrong jackets.' she said.
She'd realised this when she felt the dampness of the jacket lining as she stuffed her
arms into the sleeves, and pulled out a sachet of Boy Butter lubricant from its inside
pocket which she held out to prove that they were indeed mixed up.
'I don't think I will be needing this' she gloated,
Moist.
Both Alicia and Ellen had thought that Gary was a bit strange. He didn't exactly get
off to a flying start at interview but there were signs of potential there. Alicia at least
liked the fact that he was a bouncer. She had to admit that if anyone could control the
men, he could. Ellen liked the fact that he had more than enough industry experience.
The most deciding factor on swinging it Gary's way, however, was that there were no
other applicants for the job. For some reason, there weren't many people who fancied
the idea of working with psychopaths armed with scissors. Gary was the only
schmuck who had come forward. The job was his, if only by default.

24. 24
He was surprised when he received the job offer. He accepted and started a week later.
He wouldn't have done if he'd known the state of the dire conditions that he would be
working in. Victorian jails are not pleasant. Nothing to see there but long rows of
cells, open landings apart from nets to catch the suicidals, thick metal doors coated
with centuries of chipped paint that looked like multi layered, multicoloured flowering
cacti in a desert of drab miserable beige. Scrubs is made up of four wings linked
together by the 'spine' similar to the letter 'E' but with four arms not three. Unlike the
Panopticon, radial design more typical of the era, this masterpiece was designed to
impersonate a Tuscan Monastery. Paradoxically, it is a grade 2 listed building; not the
type of construction that normally enjoys such coveted protected status. Most cells on
other wings are double occupancy, and until the 1990s, none of them had any sanitary
provision. Slopping out was the only option. If you had ever had the unnatural
inclination to observe such an activity take place each morning, you would notice that
no faeces were ever passed into the open drain at the centre of each wing.. That was
because if you ever dared leave a festering shit steaming at the head of your
slumbering cellmate you would more than likely be woken with a fist in your face.
Even with scum there are standards. When nature came calling, you pushed it out into
a sock or if you were feeling creative parcelled it up in paper and threw it out of the
cell window. The only time you should retain your defecation was to throw it in the
face of an offending officer, or to coat your hands before you were opened up and
give your 'best-friend screw' a good morning hug. Shit protests were common: the last
resort in getting your voice heard. The ears of authority might be deaf but their noses
are not. Despite the introduction of toilets nearly twenty years ago, some cons still got
some sort of perverted pleasure from lobbing their shit out of the window, even
though D wing was single-cell occupancy and refurbished with stainless steel toilets,
.Gary couldn't help but notice this on his first day of duty as he made his way through
it all on his way to D wing where he was to meet Ellen at the training room on the
second landing. The 2s. She was already there when he arrived. Similar outfit, frills,
same perfume, even more exquisite contrasted against the overpowering stench of the
place.
'So Gary' she said. 'Welcome to your new home now.'
As he surveyed his brand new 'barbershop' Gary felt the same despondence as the
countless prisoners who had heard those same words.
Gary reflected on his own career and wondered how the hell he found himself
working in such a dump. The salon was three cells that had been knocked-through.
Six tatty old salon chairs faced six scratched-up plastic mirrors that looked like they
had been cleaned with a brillo pad. The Barbering course was new but the equipment
certainly wasn't. He hadn't expect much anyway, but it was far more dismal than he
anticipated. The prospect of working in such a place overwhelmed him. Ellen could
see it in his face

25. 25
''Of course Gary,' she said, 'budgets are very important in prisons. I know that some
of the equipment is a bit old, but the barbershop in Pentonville has just closed down.
Let's just say that there were security issues there.'
What really happened at Pentonville was the barbering tutor, Michella, was stabbed to
death by a student who was already on the edge, tipped over by the arrogant attitude
she had to her job. Gary didn't need to know this.
'Have a look at it and let me know what you think you will need.' she said.
'I'm sure we can work something out' Gary said, trying to sound as enthusiastic as he
could. Ellen ignored his disappointment and handed him the City and Guilds log book
that listed the assessment criteria that each student was expected to achieve,and that
was that. He sat down in one of the tatty chairs, dejected. He looked at himself in the
mirror, or rather tried to. Alarm bells and panic buttons that ran throughout the prison
were contained in gaping wide conduit that was smack-bang eye level when you were
seated in the salon chairs so that any man of normal stature could barely see the top of
his head.
'Oh this just gets better' Gary said to himself, although he didn't feel much like
laughing, It was almost panic. Initially he’d loved the idea of working with cons. He
anticipated that there would be challenging behaviour, but that was one of the things
he was looking forward to. Over the years his brain had become numb with the
mindless chit chat he'd had to endure from decades of salon work. One way of
overcoming the misery that this aspect of his work caused was to play THE MOST
BORING TOP TEN THINGS THAT CLIENTS HAD EVER SAID game. The greatest
of all time was Bad Breath Bev of Bebington. She famously said,
'It was so warm that my grown-sons came over and were drinking soft drinks out of
the fridge.'
Verbal cosh. You can see why Gary was looking for more out of life. He certainly
expected the conversation in a prison environment to be a damned sight more
stimulating and colourful than the banal chatter that had polluted his life for so long.
Looking around these strange surroundings, he realised that he didn't have a clue what
to expect any longer. Here he was with nothing to welcome him to his new job other
than a shadow-board full of rusty, second-hand, decrepit tools and a log-book from a
training organisation that seemed to ask the impossible in terms of achievement.

26. 26
CHAPTER 3
A crowd had gathered around Gary as he pinned his poster to the wall on the notice
board right next to the servery for maximum exposure. This was where the cons
queued day after day for their slop. More slopping in than slopping out and it sadly
came out in the same state that it went in. Same shit, different bucket/plate. That was
apart from Friday. Then you got a cheese baguette, grated and stale respectively, but it
was nourishing, filling and at least came out of the other end solid, always a bonus.
The notice read:
WE ARE STARTING A NEW BARBERING COURSE HERE ON D WING. WE HAVE
GOT A BRAND NEW BARBERSHOP OPENING ON THE 4S VERY SOON. WE
WOULD LIKE YOU TO THINK OF A NAME. ITS YOUR BARBERSHOP. ITS YOUR
NAME. PLEASE WRITE ANY SUGGESTIONS BELOW AND YOU CAN VOTE FOR
YOUR NAME. ITS YOUR BARBERSHOP'
Gary had asked Janice in CAD to come up with the design. What he was anticipating
from their brief was punchy, arty, contemporary. What he got 'Wild West meets
Vaudeville'. He didn't intend it to have 'it's your barbershop' twice.' That was a
production error. It was retrospectively prudent of him not to have pointed this out to
Janice, who was menopausal and emotionally fragile at the time, and ever since.
The response was satisfactory in quantity if not in quality. Prisoners inevitably adopt a
dark humour in life which was manifested in the bitter tone of their proposed names.
The Electric Chair
Screw Cuts
Bar Bar
I cut you
Sweeney Todd's
Gas and Hair
The Yorkshire Clipper.
This at least showed that the cons were interested. He had been busy setting up the
course, preparing resources (photocopying and ordering pens), procurement (handing
out flyers) and the department had agreed a purchase order for new cutting equipment.
Now that he had actually started to work on things the fear of isolated panic had begun
to dissipate. He knew that this job wasn't for ever, unlike many other ancient Scrubs
education veterans, but at least it was becoming potentially bearable.
Alicia's email was very specific. It said that course applications needed to be vetted
by security intelligence for risk assessment. Gary sent over fifty work or 'LEO'
Applications as they were known for only six places on class. The heavy bird in the

27. 27
LEO office fancied Gary and made that abundantly clear when he dropped the forms
onto her desk. She did not look pleased as she looked through them and protested that
her workload was unbearable as she pulled at her two-toned home-dyed hair in mock
stress, but she would nobly sacrifice her sanity and make an exception in Gary's case.
At a price.
Thanks Daisy,' he said, surprised at her silly tantrum at merely asking someone to do
the job for which they were paid.
'You owe me a drink, mate!' she said.
I don't think so love, thought Gary.
Unsurprisingly, many of the applications came back rejected.
'Violent to officer'
Spat at healthcare nurse'
'Staff must not attend prisoner unaccompanied.'
''Stabbed...punched...strangled...spooned...'
Spooned was a new one to Gary, much to the amusement of his colleague Pat, who
wasted no time in defining the term for him.. If a con was thought to have plugged his
stash of drugs up his arse, as many of them did, they were routinely forced to bend
over and a spoon was used to retrieve the said item from his anus. Many a spliff had
smelt of shit down on D wing. It was unsettling that lads that appeared to be so
friendly were ever capable of such nastiness. There were precautions in place to
protect him though; panic alarms, radio and a whistle. Gary used his as a key ring. He
hoped that they were enough.
Everything moves at a snail's pace in the prison service. Security had taken longer
than expected to clear the LEO applications, which he had been confusingly advised
was exactly what was to be expected. Deadline day was rapidly approaching, so Gary
had no option but to select his final six students from the applications without
interview first. There was not really much to go on other than the smart-arse answers
in the 'why do you want to do this course' section. This made it easier to filter out the
complete morons.
'It's better than being banged up all day'
'I don't want to get AIDS from the wing barbers'
'I want to be put on hold so I'm not transferred to a prison and can stay with my mate.'
'The teacher might be fit.'
Not Gary, of course. They were obviously expecting a woman.
Some aspired to become professional barbers. This was an unlikely outcome, but just
about possible with this qualification, but at least they were playing the game and
showing some sort of enthusiasm, as were the 'I want to cut my son's hair' which came
up frequently. Real heart softener, that one. Gary knocked together a list of six men
that he felt were the keenest to do the course and least likely to attack him. He sent
the start letter out and at last began to feel more upbeat about his new job. Ellen's
Brazilian sense of humour did not transcend well into Gary's typically British type.

28. 28
She did not display even a flicker of amusement in her face as she sifted through the
list of proposed names for the barbershop that Gary thought hysterical,.
'Oh no, Gary, We can't have any of these. They're so offensive,' she said.
Her lips pouted, muttering as she read down the list.
'What does this mean?' she said, pointing to the 'Yorkshire Clipper' entry.
'It's a play on the Yorkshire Ripper. Peter Sutcliffe. He's a mass murderer. The
nineteen-seventies. Mainly prostitutes.'
'Ellen protested, wide eyed.
'Oh God, no! That's no good. 'Screw cuts?' What would the officers think of that?' she
said.
Surely they would have found it as funny as he did. He kept silent as she approved
some of the more boring names.
2s trims,
Cut above (please!),
D Wing Barbers, (think Jamaican accent),
Lox (funny) and
Clip-Joint.
'What is Clip-Joint? ' she said.
Gary knew of course. It is a rip-off bar where tarts and strippers pull a punter, allure
them inside with the promise of free strippers, charge them a fiver for entry then forty
quid for a bottle of Budweiser. Bent old-school bouncers provided back-up as and
when if the punters get lively . An easy racket, Soho used to be full of them. Some
still exist even now. Gary used to work opposite such a bar on Rupert Street. It was
always an entertaining shift watching the unsuspecting tourists go in all smiles and
come out broke ( just like their ribs if they complained to much).
Determined that his new domain would not have such an undesirable appellation as
the ones Ellen was liking, Gary exploited her ignorance
'I don't know,' he lied, ‘I guess it's just a cool name for a barbers. Slang. I like it.'
Ellen's pen ticked the name. She bought it. The shortlist was finalised. Gary typed it
out and pinned it to the notice board on D Wing. He explained to the few that moaned
about the omission of their entries that some had been censored by the management.
The vote was not exactly a high turnout, but 'Clip-Joint' secured all but two of the
votes, those of which were inexplicably for '2Trims.'
The security vetting was not relevant to the crimes that had been committed. Virtually
everyone on D wing was convicted of crimes involving violence, even though of
course if you ever ask them, they are all innocent, tragic victims of miscarriages of
justice. The vetting was based purely on their conduct whilst they were detained at her
Majesty's pleasure and not reflective of their crimes that landed them in prison, hence
applications were from a cross section of the prison community. Gary was aware that
there may have been criminals of a violent nature on his class. That didn't seem to
matter though. They had strict procedures in place to minimise the risk of any

29. 29
potential attack. The shadow-board had crude outlines of the tools contained within
drawn on it so that you could see if any items were missing, and to avoid the scissors
getting out of the barbershop, the salon door was locked when a class was running.,
Gary found the prospect of being locked in a room full of dangerous criminals
daunting. He'd got the panic alarms and his radio though. And his whistle if things got
really out of control.
The cons were banged up at, lunchtime lockdown, so that the screws could have their
two hour lunch break. Gary went out onto the wing with his confirmation letters for
his new students. It was eerily quiet, apart from snoring and the strangled-sax sound
of 'This Morning' emanating from some of the cells. The letters of offer were pushed
under the cell doors, so as not to wake them. He spent the rest of the afternoon
finalising everything to make sure that he was fully prepared for the class which was
to begin the next day. He had stuck barbery-type pictures around the place, the last
one of which was a photo of a barbers façade called Mega Cuts, but the squareness of
the font, and the fact that a pair of scissors were cutting the 'U' in half meant that it
read 'Mega Clits.' Irresistibly subtle. Gary stood back to admire it, smiling, and
wondering if anyone would get it.
'Start off as you mean to go on,' he said to himself as he locked Clip-Joint up for the
night.
Gary's gaydar went off the Richter the next morning when the first student to arrive
came in. Rolled in more like, as if he was on castors. The drab prison uniform he was
wearing trumpeted his screaming 'artistic' tenancies.. It was a spectacular model of a
remarkable flair for creativity and design that many gay men possess. It was
transformed to such an extent that it was barely recognisable to its former self. The
grey sweat pants were standard issue, to fit the standard size of the standard con, but
the guy wearing it was anything but standard. He was tall. Easily six foot two, and
extremely thin, with no more than twenty eight inches around the waist, chest and
hips. No arse to speak of, which was always a shame for a gay guy, assuming that this
first impression was accurate. He had rolled up the legs that would’ve been too short
anyway, and rolled down the waistband that would’ve been too wide, and knotted it
slightly left of centre to reveal an emaciated hipbone that jutted out abruptly from his
slender frame. For added sex-appeal, he flagrantly displayed a wisp of fine, dark pubic
hair that merged into a thin, downy stripe towards his abdomen. The T shirt was wide
and voluminous, but when dressing such a thin long body it magically transformed
into a real high-fashion number that required very little modification. The neckline
that had been stretched out of size over countless meat-heads was pulled to the side
and off one shoulder, and the already short sleeves were turned up into rolls and it's
waist drawn in with a thin red plastic ladies' belt around it to rouche it in and gather it
neatly at the waist. His face was not classically handsome, but there was something
compellingly interesting in the way this guy looked. His complexion was pallid and
spotty, exacerbated from time served without natural daylight or sunshine and a poor

30. 30
prison diet His acne was partially disguised by a spiky long fringe that stretched
ostentatiously across half of his face, fixed into shape by product. Wet look, but at the
same time hard-set. It could have even been natural sebum, it looked so caked. It
turned out to be an innovative use of soap. .
Gary had met many 'gay personalities' over the years, but someone who looked as fey
as this in such a macho environment took him aback. This guy extended a long,
refined, thin hand. The veins underneath the pale, translucent skin were blue. The
dirty nails that adorned the end of each finger were under-coated with liquid paper
stolen from the landing office, and coloured in with red Biro. Gary took his hand but
only managed to grasp two demurely poised fingertips that were cool, limp and
clammy.
Then he spoke, his voice soft and affected. His large Adam's apple looked even more
prominent in such a long, slender neck. It danced up and down in rhythm to his
diction, a broad Yorkshire accent. So manly usually, but not on this one..
'Hello, I'm Suzi,' he said, tilting his head to the fringed side. He seductively
worked his eyes up and down Gary's form. That was what you called an entrance.
'Hello Suzi. Pretty name.' said Gary, taking the piss.
It went right over Suzi's head.
'Thanks,' he said. 'It's not my real name. My real name's Michael Deneuve'
'Ah, that's why I can't see you on my register,' Gary said.
Suzi couldn't wait to get her story out.
'My mum's a quarter French you see,' he said. 'When I was a kid, my mum and her
mates used to take me out shoplifting. When we started to get recognised, they started
to disguise me. They used to dress me as a girl after they got known in the shops so
that they'd think we were different people. It worked every time. That was why they
called me Suzi. It just stuck. I like it though. It rather suits me, don’t you think?'
Gary though that this moniker suited him a dammed sight more than Michael.
'Yes, it most certainly does,' he said. 'Ah, Found you at last... On the register I mean.'
'Have you done this job before? Worked in a prison I mean?' Suzi said.
No, I haven't,' Gary said. 'Are you going to be gentle with me?'
The screeching laugh that came out of Suzi stopped as swiftly as it started when
fellow inmate Dennis walked in.
Dennis and Suzi had a history. Not as lovers though. They had shared a cell at
Pentonville a few years back.. The relationship was doomed from the start. Dennis
was homophobic amongst other things. Not just illiberal, he was rotten to the core.
He hated the world, and the world hated him.. He had a record dating back to nineteen
eighty-four, where he received a two year sentence for a section 18 GBH, a mindless
act of violence against a poor unsuspecting guy who tried to pick him up one Saturday
night. This poor unfortunate had gone out on the pull, didn’t get lucky in the bars, and
was heading home alone on the night bus full of rowdy drunks. This guy gave him the
eye, but he mistook Dennis's reciprocal menacing stare as a come-on. Dennis had

31. 31
intended merely to intimidate the guy to feed his own ego. Just lowering his eyes and
an anxious swallowing gulp would have sufficed in satiating Dennis's evil game, but
the guy was drunk. He didn’t read the signs properly. Dennis was an attractive
enough figure. He was broad, short, but well-built and handsome in an ugly sort of
way. His ears stuck out a bit, but that added to his charm, appearance-wise, as did his
slightly stupid default facial expression. Even when he smiled, the serial killer instinct
in him was unapparent. There was no other charm to be found within his soulless
existence though.
Eye contact of longer than two seconds with a stranger means one of two things.
Either you're going to get a fuck, or you are fucked. The poor guy supposed the
former. He smiled. Dennis smiled back. That was all Dennis needed. He now had
carte blanche to wade in with a valid excuse to take offence. This shit-stabber thought
that Dennis was a dirty, queer pervert like himself. The cheeky fucking bastard. Oh
no, Dennis. You can't let him get away with that mate. You've been insulted. And now
he's gonna pay
The guys cock was already stirring as Dennis landed heavily in the seat next to him.
He put his arm around the guy's neck, pulling his head towards him, growling, his
breath smelling of beer, his stubble tickling his ear arousing him further.
''Ello, darlin. What's your name?' he said. He was playing with him like a cat with a
mouse. The guy didn’t get it, didn't pick up on his threatening tone.
'Chris. Pleased to meet you.' Chris said.
They shook hands. Dennis gripped it hard and refused to release it. Then Chris got the
picture. He was scared out of his wits. Dennis got the nervous gulp he was after. No
saliva though. Chris's mouth became as dry as dust. His eyes darted away, but Dennis
still saw terror in them. That was what turned him on.
'Ello Chris. Tonight’s your lucky night.' he said.
With that, he squeezed harder. Really hard. Dennis's signature. The bones in Chris'
hand cracked and popped as Dennis tightened his grip. Chris managed to pull his hand
away and jumped up to get off at wherever the next stop was, but Dennis followed
stealthily behind. The night didn’t end well for Chris. He survived, but only just.
Since then Dennis had been in and out of prison all his adult life, not for crimes that
would at least benefit someone somewhere in some way, but always for acts of
mindless, stupid violence. He loved to see others suffering at his mercy. In all fairness,
though, he didn’t discriminate. It wasn’t just gays. It was anyone unlucky enough to
be near him at the time. His longest stretch was for stabbing his brother nine times,
resulting in a nine year stretch. Characters of his type were nothing unusual in Scrubs,
especially on D wing, hence only one man to a cell. He was surprised when he saw
Suzi in the barbershop and not at all happy about it. Tension flared up like the big
bang when he made his loathing for Suzi immediately apparent.
'What the fuck are you doing here you fucking queer?' he said.

32. 32
Suzi may have been one of the campest men Gary had ever met, but he certainly
wasn't the weakest. Years of prison life had taught him how to survive or die. He was
having none of it. Suzi was well up for anything Dennis had to offer.
'I was just going to ask you, you fat fucking wanker.' he said.
They immediately lunged at each other.
Gary was shaking as he came between them.
'What the fuck is going on here?' he said. 'If you two start that shit I’m going to get the
screws in to bang you up and I'll put you on report in no time.'
(He didn’t know what that actually meant, but he'd seen it on Cell Block H so he
assumed it must happen in all other prisons too.)
His finger was hovering over the panic button. The two stood glaring at each other.
Gary was relieved that there was no serious damage done and they didn’t actually
come to blows. Thoughts of gloating Alicia scrapping his course and losing his job on
the first day also spooked him, making the whole episode even more traumatic. Suzi
hadn't finished though, He wanted to dig the boot right in,
'Do you want another scar on the other side of your head, you little-dick arsehole?;
Gary would have laughed if he wasn't so petrified.
'Listen fellers,' he said. 'I don’t know what the problem is with you two but if you can't
be grown up enough to sit in the same room as each other then you can both fuck off
back to your cells and I will get two new students.'
That would have been difficult with all the bad behaviour on D wing failing the
security vetting. Gary actually needed them but they didn't have to know that.
'It's this fucking bender, sir. That's my problem.' Dennie said, speaking to Gary but
glowering at Suzi.
Ten minutes into his new job, and Gary was subjected to the offensive homophobia he
had heard all over the prison rearing its ugly head in his new class already. He tried
not to take it personally.
'What is going on with you two?' he yelled, 'You tell me lads. How the fuck am I
supposed to deal with this. If you were me how would you handle it?'
Dennis jumped straight in.
'If I were you I’d get shut of this fucking bent cunt for a start.
‘Right mate,' said Gary trying to contain his anger, 'If you think I'm going to exclude
someone from my class just because he's a 'fucking queer' then you're mistaken., It's
against my contract, and actually, it's against my principles as well .Do us all a favour
and sit down and shut up or get out mate. This is my first day, and I can't be arsed
dealing with stupid arseholes like you.'
How the fuck was he meant to deal with conflicting temperaments like this? He was in
at the deep end.
'Right. You sit there Suzi. You sit at the opposite end, and if you don’t ever say a
word to each other then I won't mind. It doesn't look like you're ever going to be the
best of friends, but we all have to live with people in our lives that we don't like. Just
fucking grow up. This is my first day, for fucks sake.'

33. 33
Amazingly, they did as they were told. Gary was glad that he had managed to take
control of the situation that he had expected to escalate into a full-on scrap. They were
still breathing like bulls, but everything seemed contained. Gary tried to diffuse the
tension.
'So you're gay then, Suzi?' he said cheekily, ' I wouldn't have know that!.'
His cheap gag lightened the mood but the three men sat in silence while Gary sorted
out his resources until the next student arrived.
Michael's smile was as big as he was small. His eyes virtually disappeared into what
looked like two diagonal creases as he beamed his way into the barbershop. Gary
couldn’t help but wonder what the hell his crime was with such a happy face. Happy
but not pretty. His mouth had a distinctive foetal-alcohol syndrome look about him,
but you just couldn’t help feeling his warmth. Michael was yet to attain such maturity,
but years of laughter had left his tiny, thirty-six-year-old face lined like an ordnance
survey map; a giant baby with wrinkles. As he got closer, the condition of his teeth
told another story; one of persistent drug abuse and drinking, but as first impressions
go, this went well. Gary liked Michael instantly. It was hard to think of who wouldn't.
He checked Michael on the register and sat next to Dennis. They introduced
themselves to each other, but not to Suzi. They excluded him as though he wasn’t
even there. Gary noticed this, but hoped that Suzi hadn’t. Gary felt for him. He was a
brother. Sister. Whatever he was, he was one of Gary's kind, and he didn’t like what
he saw.
Johnny Santino had an exotic sounding name, but his mannerisms and voice were
about as British as you could get. He too was small in stature, with swarthy features
that did suggest he had some distant continental blood in him somewhere from way
back, but he was a Londoner through and through, He had knocked on the door, and
Gary told him and the others to never knock. That this was their 'space.' He cringed
when he said this, anxious on his first day that he should make a good impression; he
was not the type of person who would use a pretentious word like that. First day
nerves. There were a lot more to come.,
'Hello, sir. I'm Santino.' he said.
Sir? Gary felt ill at ease with this formality, and with misplaced sense of self-
importance mistakenly thought it was a special personal salutation to acknowledge his
authoritative presence.
'Please, call me Gary,' he said, 'Lads...'
'And Suzi,' Dennis said interrupting.
Gary ignored him and carried on. It was a coping mechanism that anyone who was
unfortunate enough to encounter Dennis resorted to.
'I don't want any of this surname crap. In here, you're on a college course. I'm not even
employed by the prison, To might be cons as far as the screws are concerned. To me
you're students. Are we all OK with that?'
, 'Good to meet you Gary, I’m Johnny,' he said.

34. 34
'Good to meet you too,' Gary said, 'This is Michael and this is also Michael, AKA
Suzi. That’s worked out well actually. There won't be any confusion with the two
Michaels then. And please. Don't call me Sir. I definitely don't like that. Unless it's in
the bedroom!'
They all tittered, except Dennis,
'Listen, Gary,' he scowled, the latter words heavy with sarcasm. 'I ain't calling that slag
Suzi, I mean, what kind of man calls himself a girl's name? Fuck that!.'.
The cat was spitting again,
'Well, what shall we call you then? he said, his voice hissing with sibilance. 'Fat
fucker?'
Then he slowed down his speech, drawing out every syllable through his large,
sneering mouth to play his trump card.
'Or pin-dick?' he mocked.
Suzi's long thin red Biro finger knew exactly how to push Dennis's buttons. However
small some of them might have been. Dennis felt emasculated and humiliated, his
vascular face this time so red with rage you could see the blood the blood throbbing in
the thick veins of his short, stout neck.
'I’m warning you, you fucking bender,' he said, 'you'd better watch yourself.'
They both stood up to confront one another, looking comical, Suzi so tall and thin,
Dennis so short and wide in comparison. Suzi put his hands on his hips, his head
swinging like a metronome.
'Or what?' he said. 'You're going to fuck me to death with that?'
He pointed between Dennis's legs. Dennis wasn’t happy. He grabbed Suzi's pointing
finger and bent it backwards showing no intention of releasing it. Suzi must have been
in pain, but if he was, he certainly didn't show it in his defiant, smirking face. Dennis
had reached boiling point. Their eyes locked, unblinking and wide. His voice was a
virtual growl, low, quiet and spine-chillingly controlled.
'I'll fuck your arse alright. But not with a cock. Let's try a fucking long sharp knife.
How'd that do you?' he said.
Suzi suddenly shuddered and gave his game away. Dennis had gained the upper hand.
He was getting to him. This was the stuff that psychopaths are made of. Gary
panicked. He was desperate not to have to push the alarm button and suffer the
shameful consequences instead pushing his head between theirs. He didn't think
before he shot his mouth off. It could have gone horribly wrong.. Luckily this time it
didn't. It worked. Mimicking the same menacing tone of Dennis, he said,
'If you don’t let go of his finger, and you don’t sit down, I'll be the one doing the
fucking. With my size eleven feet. And the only lube I'll be using is your own blood
and tears. Now sit fucking down.'
Miraculously, they did as they were told. The tension between them was still palpable,
but the threat of imminent violence was over. Gary tried to appear calm and normal.

35. 35
Business as usual, but inside his heart was beating out of his chest. Still, though, he
was as pleased as hell that he'd managed to contain the situation yet again. Talk about
beginners luck. He'd often used humour to diffuse aggravated situations, but this
wasn't handbags, These were violent men, including Suzi. Gary had to take his hat off
to him. You wouldn't want to upset him. He was utterly impressed by the fact that he
had stood his ground and gave as good as he got.
Abdulla and David arrived together. They were friends on the outside, committed to
prison through unrelated crimes, and fortunate enough to find themselves on the same
wing at Scrubs, and had applied for the barbering course together. Abdulla was
awaiting deportation back to his homeland of Palestine,, and so wore his own clothes
which were garish in contrast to the regular issue prison uniform. His dress sense was
colourful, and typically Asian. Gary had never before seen so many sequins and
rhinestones on a pair of jeans which looked pristine, despite that the manufacturing
process that the denim underwent was purposely to make them look worn and faded.
Like the sequins themselves, the distressed look was fussy and heavy on the eye. Gary
couldn't help but comment,
'Now that's what I call a pair of jeans. They must be a label.'
'They're Fila Sir. 'Cos when you wear them you Fila cunt!' said David.
This time even Dennis said. So did Abdulla.
'Ignore anything he says, Sir. He talks shit'
'Better than looking shit.' said David taking the piss, Abdulla was chuckling. You
could tell that these two were good friends.
'Excuse me. Versace shit if you don't mind,’ he said.
'Versace eh? You must be in for drug dealing then eh?' Gary said.
All the class was now present. Gary completed his register, ticking off David Latimer
and Abdulla Rameen once he found their names. The atmosphere was pretty good
considering the altercation earlier. Gary got on with the inductions, and handed out the
packs. Sheets of photo copies stapled together that is. A list of do's and don'ts, rules
and regulations and pointless forms to be filled in purely so satiate pedantic OFSTED
inspectors. He rattled off his introductory patter, outlining his career, telling the
students about his work experience, and why he had chosen to work in a prison.
Dennis's subsequent remark was uncalled for and hit a nerve with Gary.
'So you gave up being a hairdresser-to-the stars to work in a dirty fucking prison like
this? You're talking bollocks mate.;
Dennis needed putting in his place.
'And you're talking through your arse,' Gary said,. 'Shut it will you mate, your breath
smells of farts.'
More laughs, red face and throbbing neck veins. Suzi's cackle was contrived, bitter
and very, very loud. Gary invited the men to introduce themselves, tell the rest of the
group about who they were, and what they wanted to get out of the course.
'Right then, who wants to go first?' he said.

36. 36
This was standard formatting of a new adult teaching group. Everyone has been on
meetings and training courses and you can bet your bottom dollar that everyone hates
this ice-breaker bollocks. Gary preferred to learn about his students in a more candid
style as the course went on, but this was a new environment, new personalities, and
new challenges, Dennis being one of them. There was a tense moment of silence until
Suzi decided to go first.
'Hi-ya, I'm Suzi. My real name's Michael, but no one calls me that. I'm thirty-four,
dyslexic so I haven't had a job before, except for working as a rent boy around Soho
for the past twenty years or so, going out, to parties, and just having a laugh, basically.
My claim to fame is that I had Colin Ireland as a punter once. You know him? The
Gay Slayer? I robbed the fucking arse off him when he fell asleep pissed. Glad I did
now the bastard. I'm getting too old for being on the game now. That's why I'm in in
prison. I tried dealing drugs after business got slack.
'Like your arse,' said Dennis.
Suzi ignored him, and carried on.
'I really always wanted to do women's hairdressing, but there's not much chance here.
I'm the only one on the wing with long hair, and everyone else has shit prison cuts. I
wouldn't mind doing this when I get out if I'm any good. I'm dyslexic, but no one
realised at school because I was never fucking there so I can't read or write much.'
Gary certainly didn't expect anyone in prison to be so up-front about gay sexuality.
This guy had never even been in the closet. Anyone could guess that he was gay just
by looking at him, but talking so openly about his orientation in such a homophobic
environment took guts and stamina, not to mention surviving a night of passion with
one of the notorious rent-boy murderers ever to darken the London gay scene, but
Suzi had been in and out of prison for years. He was well-know down on the wings of
most of the prisons in the capital, and most of the long-termers and regulars inside had
encountered Suzi, and they knew what he was capable of doing if he needed to. No.
Best to steer clear of this queer.
Wow!' Gary said, 'sounds like you had a great time. I bet you're glad Colin didn’t!'
'Oh no, he had a good time alright,' said Suzi. 'I thought it was weird when he asked
me to pretend to be dead when we got down to business. Easiest punter I've ever had.
I've had a fabulous time, Gary. It's been amazing. I've got as high as a kite on every
drug on the sun, and I'm still alive to tell the tale which is a fucking miracle. Believe
it or not, I used to make decent money before when I was turning tricks. I can't keep
on doing it forever though. I got three years, done one. Been clean as well.'
Dennis resented the friendly attention that Suzi was getting from the teacher.
'What fucking sad, desperate bastard would pay for that,' he said.
Out came the penis-pointing finger, sibilant sneer, head-roll.
'A lot more money than anyone would pay for that!' said Suzi.
No reaction. Good lad, Dennis. He just looked at Suzi, shaking his head. Suzi crossed
his long, thin legs, and slid smugly down his chair. It was lucky that there was no