Gang of One: One Man's Incredible Battle to Find His Missing by Gary Mulgrew Page B

in check.
    ‘Yup, I’d say that’s a sought-after piece of real estate you got there,’ Chief went on with a slightly different smile, like he’d fully got my joke. ‘They must have got word that you came from Pollock,’ he added – again suggesting by the merest trace of a grin that he knew full well which Pollock I’d come from. I liked the Chief.
    My new apartment was a tiny space. There were no tables and chairs, and if you weren’t lying in your bed, you’d have to be sitting on top of it or standing in the thoroughfare everyone else used to get to and from their own beds. There was a small locker, maybe two feet high by a foot wide. I opened it and looked inside – I don’t quite know why; I wasn’t expecting to find something in it, a welcome pack or a bowl of fruit. I guess I wanted something to do. My heart was sinking faster than a fat man on thin ice and it sank further as more inmates started to come into the room, each one having himself a good long look at the fresh meat. Trying to ignore them, I went about making up my bed – which took all of three minutes – then I decanted my worldly possessions into my locker. I felt about as low as I could ever remember, but then I congratulated myself that I had actually been lower. Getting extradited and telling Calum I was leaving him had been worse than this; way, way worse.
    I climbed up onto my top bunk and looked out of my tiny window. It was just like that little window I used to look up to when I spent those cold and lonely nights in Quarriers Homes as a little boy. This one had seven bars in it, but I was as much a prisoner then as I am now, I thought. Self-conscious and uncomfortable, I propped myself up on my bunk and began reading the Correctional Rules for New Inmates in the Big Spring Correctional Facility – surely one ‘Correctional’ too many – trying to ignore the fact that I was the subject of much staring and discussion as more and more inmates filtered back into the room.
    Each new entrant to the Big Brother room looked scarier than the last. About two-thirds of my new roomies were Hispanic, with about a dozen Blacks, a few more Natives and maybe only five or six Whites – very much the minority. What they lacked in numbers, however, they made up for in sheer threat value, as most of them were the kind you wouldn’t want to see on a dark night, or on a bright day either. These first few white toughs were boy scouts, though, compared to the two scrawny looking dudes with skinheads who suddenly came marching into the room. Immediately I could see they set a number of people on edge. One of the Hispanics theatrically spat on the floor then wiped it with his shoe as he turned away from them. I sat with my legs dangling from my bunk watching the skinheads as they surveyed the room. ‘What are they up to?’ I wondered, and then, to my dismay, I found out, as the saw me and moved directly towards me.
    ‘Scotland? You called Scotland?’ asked the slightly shorter of the two as he approached me, offering his fist in a bump. I reluctantly bumped back and thought of saying ‘Who’s asking?’, but not feeling bold enough, I just nodded instead. They looked in their mid twenties, each with dental issues. The one who spoke looked almost wasted away, but he exuded a kind of nervous energy that was already unsettling me and seemingly everyone else around, except Chief, who kept right on drawing.
    ‘Yeah, I’m Scotland,’ I answered, quite liking my new name and enjoying the fact that I was sitting high above these two psychos on my top bunk. I started to focus on their tattoos. The short one who had spoken had a swastika tattoo on his neck and the other taller one had something tattooed on his shaven head, which I couldn’t quite read at first. After shifting a little, I made out the first line as ‘God Forgives . . .’ which seemed quite encouraging, although they didn’t strike me as Christian Fellowship types. Any lingering