El Gato

Three kills tonight. Three vermin neutralised. Three fewer mouths raiding our stores. It was a successful hunt by anyone’s standard but, as always, I will receive no credit for my work.

I am El Burro—the donkey—because I didn’t know how to say mule in Spanish. Even though I am in Indonesia's most infamous prison, most of us are learning Spanish because of Ramos ‘Reymos’ Hernández. Reymos is a fellow inmate but he is king. 

‘Rey’.

That’s Spanish for king.

I am El Burro, the donkey. The drug mule.

Despite my proficiency, I am not el Cazador, the Hunter. Not el Asesino, the Assassin.

It makes me think of that ‘You fuck one goat’ joke. No matter how much good you do, your virtuous accomplishments, you’ll always be remembered by your biggest mistake.

“What you do, hermano?” Reymos asked on the day he first approached me under the jacaranda tree. Reymos had, at that time, killed or ordered the killing of thirteen people, including a guard. That was three years ago. Now it’s thirty-five prisoners and two guards.

“Drugs,” I'd said. Just like 90 per cent of the population of Kerobokan.

“Sell or make?” he asked in his broken English.

“Mule,” I replied.

He scrunched his pock-marked face and shrugged.

“You know, a mule? Like a—” I searched my limited catalogue of Spanish words “—burro?”

Reymos’s face slowly unscrunched—I wouldn’t say ‘softened’, he’s the ugliest, meanest looking motherfucker you’ve ever seen—and he smiled. His teeth appeared to have been replaced by sultanas and bits of corn.

Then he brayed like an ass.

“Hee-hawww!” Reymos bellowed. Everyone laughed and joined in, even me. You’d be an idiot not to. Plenty had been stabbed for less. “El Burro!” he said, pointing at me and the whole world did the same. If I hadn’t been so covered in filth, they’d have seen the shame burnt into my face.

Introversion is a quality of the more interesting people. There is solace in solitude. Being an extrovert gets you nothing but more attention. In prison, the last thing you want is attention. Getting noticed is the best way to get yourself on the Reydar. 

If you’re on the Reydar, you’d best either get off there real quick or prove yourself useful. Rey does not permit competition of any kind; infamy, earnings, or otherwise. 

Rey demands payment for protection, an offering. Some product or service to ensure one of his minions doesn’t slide a knife into your side as you sleep or fuck you in the shower block. My offering is to take care of the rat problem. 

My unmatched ability to dispatch rats benefits everyone but it especially benefits Rey, whose black market operation had, until my arrival, counted on monthly losses of thirty per cent in product. 

With no discernible value to Rey’s network—I’m a skinny guy who can’t fight, can’t cook, have no outside contacts or family money, and I definitely don’t get down for sexual favours—I was on the Reydar. But three rats is a good haul after a week of coming up empty. Three rats should get me back to my preferred status: incógnito.

I’m sitting under the blossom-laden jacaranda waiting for Reymos to emerge from his cell.

'Cell'. It's a fucking palace. His accommodation is three cells he paid the warden to knock down the internal walls, converting it into one big room. Couch, TV, stereo, fridge, a computer for God's sake. He also has a fourth cell from which he runs his business he calls La Tienda, The Store. I’ve left the rats on the doorstep.

The morning is sunny and steam rises from the sodden ground where golden shafts have pierced the interruptions of guard towers, trees, and powerlines. Once you become accustomed to breathing through your mouth, you can barely smell the fetid stench of decaying organic matter, mildew, and faeces.

The clouds will gather later— threatening but never delivering rain until after dark—but for now, perched against the smoothed trunk of the jacaranda, it is almost peaceful.

I am exhausted after my nocturnal activities but I can’t sleep.

The anticipation of Rey’s admiration fills me with a charge the junkies must feel when they get a hit of shabu. The ice. Another of Rey’s enterprises.

Rey steps into the morning sunshine, his skin like leather in the warm light. He scratches his immense belly and stretches, yawns, farts. Two men appear from the shadows, slip behind him and return moments later with an unconscious—I hope—girl. She might be sixteen. It’s hard to tell with all the makeup.

The men take the girl to the guard’s office quarters and slump her against the wall. She’ll be removed before any of the low-level inmates can interfere with her. Girls outside the visiting area are Rey’s privilege alone.

A few of the newer guys speak in hushed tones, whispering and speculating about the girl but I barely register these events now. My attention is devoted to the rats at the door of La Tienda.

Rey surveys the yard. He receives the report from his hunch-backed but muscular Sergeant at Arms and nods. My heart leaps as the henchman points to the steps on which my offering has been arranged.

Rey takes a step closer to the pile of rodent gore and appears to take pleasure in the mess I made for his benefit. Rey responds to gratuity in any form it can be manifested, and I’d felt the removal of the rats’ heads and their placement on the stomachs had a certain nostalgic quality, reminiscent of Rey’s time in the cartels.

Reymos protrudes his bottom lip, raises his black eyebrows and nods. He turns his round head toward me, to the base of the jacaranda where you can always find me, and signals he is pleased. The universal okay sign with a ring made of his thumb and forefinger, three stumpy digits like sausages.

His approval fills me with unnatural pride and relief. I am safe.

Today, I think to myself, I can sleep.

But no, Reymos Hernández is walking toward me. He lumbers and his face and chest are already wet with perspiration. His physique is that of an obese child but it commands inexplicable fear due to its galería of gruesome tattoos.

The man groans, smiling, and sits beside me.

“Tres?” he says.

“Tres,” I confirm.

“This is a good hunt, El Burro.”

“Gracias, Rey.”

He peers over his sunglasses and says, “You look tired.”

“It took many hours. I was…eager to serve.” It is important to show respect, but never to grovel. To grovel is to show weakness, and showing weakness in prison is listed right below being noticed.

“Where is El Gato?” Rey asks.

“I imagine he is sleeping, probably. He is very tired, Rey. They put up a fight.”

“The rats?”

“Si.”

This seems to please Rey and he leans his head back, staring up into the dense purple mass of jacaranda blossoms.

“My production is only down twelve per cent since you and your cat, El Burro,” he says.

“God willing, it will be down zero per cent soon.”

“There will always be problems. Interruptions.”

“But no rats,” I say.

Rey smirks and rolls his head to face me. “Then what will I need you for?”

I stumble over my words. ‘Well, I—”

“Relax!” he says, slapping my shoulder. “That’s the problem with rats. There is no such thing as no rats.”

I nod, relieved that he is aware of this universal truth.

“You and El Gato will always have work here, my friend.”

We sit for a few moments. I try to see what Rey is staring at but can not discern any difference in the day’s activity from any other. Then he says, “What do you know about Guru?”

I look to where Rey’s eyes are following a middle-aged Balinese man shuffling a deck of cards. He deals them to himself and lights a cigarette.

Given the filth in which the man sits, I can’t help but be impressed at how white he has managed to keep his one and only singlet.

“Guru? I don’t know him. Just that he was a teacher before he came here. I mean, I see him around but I don’t talk to him. He doesn’t talk to anyone.”

“That’s not what I hear,” Rey replies ominously.

Rey stands and walks back to his Sergeant at Arms. He indicates to the pile of rats and the henchman sets two smaller guys the task of cleaning them up.

They collect the carcases and take them into the block where the kitchen is. Fresh protein is in scarce supply here and knowing the provenance of your food is even rarer. Once the rats are in the spices, you could be eating spring lamb.

The yard is hot now. Inmates are going about their daily tasks, worker bees—drones—operating under the illusion that they are contributing to Rey’s good mood when the credit for that is mine alone. 

I look up at Guru. As if sensing my eyes on him, he looks up from his cards. I nod at him but he ignores me, deals his cards again. Despite his blatant disregard for prison hierarchy—punishable by a thorough beating—I don’t care. Nothing can phase me today. 

With the promise of a veritable feast, the safety of Rey’s satisfaction, and in the violet calm of the jacaranda, I close my eyes.

* * *

The gunshot blast shatters my dreams of life before the impenetrable walls and reverberates inside the concrete cube of the prison yard. I am still here in this suffocating humidity.

As if the 12-gauge turned everyone to stone, the inmates are statues, a tableau of prison life in a museum. They all face toward the main gate.

I peer around the trunk of the tree to see three guards standing over the body of a man in a white singlet. It looks brand new against his tan skin and the deep brown earth. Playing cards litter the ground. I don’t see any blood until the guards roll him over and I see Guru’s face is gone.

They drag him over to the wall where one uses a phone to photograph him. Like they did with Pancho, and Horse before that, they will say he was trying to escape.

One of the guards puts another shotgun blast into Guru’s back and more photos are taken.

That night over the hearty meal for which I am thanked repeatedly, the guys who haven’t been here long enough to know better discuss the shooting.

I do them a favour and tell them to talk about something else. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t care if a couple of the newbies got roughed up, but I don’t want anything to disturb my mood.

By 11pm, the crickets are raucous and the streets outside the walls are humming with activity. Sirens, barking, a bottle smashes, a baby cries. It is a mystery to me how a parent could deprive a child of their bed at this hour. 

The junkies fidget by the gate. The guards take their bribes so long as they promise to come back. They always do because Reymos Hernández has the best junk in the city.

Also, the punishment for not returning by morning is being shot on sight.

Those who don’t have the money for a night outside lurch to their cells and wait for sleep to take them over the walls. They huddle against the creeping cold, the perpetual damp, the spectre of violence that darkens every corner of this place.

They fear the night as children do. Only here, the monsters are real. 

From Reymos’s stooges and their shanks to the demons of addiction and vice, as the dark descends, the prison transforms. 

And so do I.

* * *

It is midnight. I creep from the slumbering cell. I am as invisible as the soughing night breeze that dances through the jacaranda. The tree is black against the charcoal clouds, bellies painted orange by street lights. The air is cooler but remains heavy with the odours of damp earth and the grease of the evening meal.

The bark of the tree makes my ascent into the lower limbs effortless and I perch, waiting from this elevated vantage point for the signature movements to catch my eyes that, even now, after the floodlights are extinguished, are adjusting to the dim. I sniff the air. The breeze has yet to clear the stench of day to reveal Korobokan’s peculiar nocturnal bouquet.

I hear him before I see him.

A set of tiny claws—a juvenile rat, perhaps a mouse—scampers on wet concrete. It is easy to assume the sex because the males are always the first to venture out and are less aggressive; their movements tentative. The females are more likely to attack and it is for that reason I peer over my shoulder every so often, ready for an ambush.

I return my gaze to the black void of the vermin’s sound, willing my eyes to sharpen further to no avail. I have not blinked since I occupied this branch, fearful that in that instant, my prey will escape.

Then, a snout.

Twinkling whiskers catch the moonlight like shooting stars and a nose searches the wind for signs of danger, scanning the night for my scent. My shoulders tighten involuntarily. I feel my pupils dilate and welcome the adrenaline coursing through my veins. I blink and the rodent is gone.

I am not discouraged. This is, of course, the game.

I prick my ears and filter the sounds of the street outside the walls to hear the squeaking chatter of the hidden mice. They are preparing to make a run for it. They can not deny their insatiable hunger for the produce in La Tienda. 

Their strategy is always the same. Unlike the solitary rats, the mice believe there is safety in numbers. That is where they are wrong. For greater numbers creates more noise. More noise attracts more attention, and everyone knows that in prison to attract attention is to invite death.

Sure enough, where one twitching nose had appeared, three now emerge.

I wait for the breeze to agitate my cover and the tree obliges to obscure the faintest sounds of my descent. I am thankful for the tufts of long grass that avoid the daily trample of feet and within seconds I am hidden in the last patch of vegetation between my tree and the drain from which the mice will inevitably venture.

The mouse now sticks his entire head out from the pipe. His eyes are wide, terrified. My reputation is well-founded. The mouse checks his left flank, his right, to ensure his comrades are prepared for the charge to La Tienda.

They squeak their assent and they scurry, blindly forward, charging into the yard. 

Into my yard.

I lunge at the corner of the wall, anticipating the trajectory of the pack, and pin two mice as the lead mouse screams and leaps back over his stricken companions, diving back into the safety of the drain. I make short work of the two squirming mice before a searing pain shoots up from my leg into my brain. I leap six feet in the air, an unearthly howl escapes my lungs and echoes through the prison. I whip around to counter the attack but the ambusher has vanished.

Then lightning strikes the base of my skull and something staples my belly and that’s when I feel the coarse fur and rubbery flesh of a rat’s tail smack me on the nose. I lunge at the retreating rodent but another bite to my leg trips me and I eat the dirt. Something heavy and thrashing lands on my head and screams in my ear, clawing at my eyes. I swat it to the ground and bite as hard as I can, hoping for something soft and vital to give way.

Another scream, this one stifled. I feel the cry rattle in its throat between my teeth. The flailing claws slow, becoming impotent, and curl closed. In the light of the moon, the rat’s eyes go dim.

I look up from the kill to see two thick tails slither into the shadows.

* * *

“It’s not three rats, El Burro,” Rey says as we sit beneath the jacaranda. “But two mice and one rat is still a good hunt.”

“It is,” I say.

“Where is El Gato?” he asks as always.

“Sleeping somewhere. He got ambushed last night, you know.”

“Embuscada?” he says, eyebrows high on his forehead.

“Si.”

Rey whistles. He looks at my ankle, points at the bites.

“I…got involved,” I say. I lift my shirt and show him the abrasions and torn skin. I lean forward and show him the bites on my neck.

“Little fuckers,” Rey says, impressed.

“I got the last laugh.”

“Tell me,” Rey says, sitting up now. “Why does El Gato leave what he kills on my doorstep? He does not eat them?”

“Because, Reymos. They are his offering,” I say.

“El Gato needs no protection.”

“Not for protection,” I say. “His offering is to feed you. He thinks you are not a good hunter.”

Rey laughs and slaps my shoulder. I wince. The rats’ mouths are full of bacteria and I’m already feeling septic.

“I don’t need to be a good hunter," Rey says, lurching to his feet. "Not when I have you and your cat, El Burro.”

When Rey reaches La Tienda, I rub the wound on my neck and look up into the canopy of the tree.

“El Gato,” I say. “I am El Gato.”