Inseparable Bond Read Free Page B

produce a daily routine with little work and in
which boredom is the main characteristic.
    This was to be
home for John Bell for the next twenty years of his life. The white
van with its blacked-out windows pulls to a halt at the large
double entrance doors to the building. After a few moments, the
doors open and the van drives through with the doors quickly
closing behind it. Once in the yard, the doors of the van open and
Bell is escorted from the vehicle to the large metal single door,
flanked by prison officers.
    Two officers
hold him as a group of others prepare the paperwork at the small
desk in the corridor. Bell stood handcuffed in blue overalls,
looking forward at the officers until he was escorted to the
desk.
    The chief
officer picked up a clip-board and in a loud and husky voice read
out the rules and regulations to Bell, ‘O.K. Bell, listen and
listen only once, this is how we do things here, 7am your cell will
be unlocked and you will ‘slop-out’ in the lavatory at the end of
the landing, 7.30am you will be locked back in your cell, 8am you
will go down for breakfast, 8.45am you will exercise in the yard,
9am you will start work where details will be given to you later,
12pm you will go for lunch, 1pm you will be banged up in your cell,
2.15pm you will exercise for one hour, 3.15pm back in your cell. At
5pm you will go for tea. 6pm you will go back to your cell, 8pm,
lights out.’
    Bell stared at
the officer as he read this out to him, while the guards released
the handcuffs from his wrists.
    As Bell looked
up, he realised he was being watched and not just by the staff in
the central control room with short-circuit televisions, but by
herds of prisoners who were chanting while he stood motionless in
the centre of a large area with various tall and gloomy sections,
which radiated out like the spokes of a wheel.
    There is tier
upon tier of cells in each direction with metal stairs joining them
and going up to the top. The whole prison would in this way be
easily supervised from the central vantage point. As Bell was
marched to a room at the end of the corridor, prisoners in their
cells turned their shaven heads to face the wall which was
compulsory when staff or prisoners approached, the only words
spoken were orders.
    Part of this
wing had been slicked-up where the old echoing floors had been
covered by vinyl, some doors had been painted in bright colours but
the dark green brick walls remained the same, underlining the
institutional appearance.
    Bell and the
prison officers enter the room at the end of the corridor where a
small thin man wearing a large white coat stands behind a metal
table.
    ‘Bring him
over here,’ he orders the two officers as he watches Bell approach
the desk, looking disapprovingly at the latest inmate. ‘Right Bell,
strip down, everything off and pass your clothes to the officer.’
Bell took off his blue overalls and stood naked in front of the
thin man whilst the officers grinned as they looked at his hairless
thin body and his well-endowed manhood. The doctor struggled
putting on a pair of surgical gloves while glaring at Bell. ‘Bend
down and touch your toes, lad,’ as the two officers placed a hand
on his shoulders to bend him forward.
    The doctor
came from the other side of the table and placed his hands on each
cheek of his arse to widen the rectum where he inserted his finger
in search of any illegal substance. Bell flinched as the finger
penetrated his rectum when one of the officers laughed and said,
‘Twenty years inside here Bell, you’ll get more than a finger up
there once this lot get their hands on you.’ The doctor retracted
his finger with another flinch from Bell and told him to stand up
straight, ‘Clothes back on now,’ he sternly said as the officer
threw his overalls back to him. He quickly dressed and was again
marched out of the room.
    By this time,
Bell was experiencing a feeling of low self-esteem as he was led
along the dark green corridor,