If symptoms persist.. .
ONE LEARNS such useful things in prison: among others, how dangerously one underestimates the criminal mind, and how lacking in imagination one is by comparison. If those mighty and innova- tive intellects were but redirected to the pursuits of righteousness — one cannot help but think — they might conquer the world.
Not long ago, the lock on the passen- ger door of my car was removed while it was parked near a police station. I had supposed that the thieves were interrupt- ed in their work, which was why the car was not actually broken into. A prisoner shook me out of my complacency last week.
It was a sunny day and I was in a good mood. As I walked across the prison yard, I was thinking how best to describe the peculiar smell of prison — or rather of British prison, since it is characteristic only of Her Majesty's penitentiaries (the smell of prisons of lesser lands without the law being more crudely biological). No: the smell of the British prison is a subtle, sweetish effluvium of soap, sweat, damp clothes, cabbage and custard, quite unlike any other smell whatever.
My thoughts were interrupted by a con who shouted down from a window with an old-fashioned iron grille. It reminded me that in prison I was often observed by people I could not see.
`Hey, doc, I've got a problem,' the con shouted. 'I shouldn't be in 'ere.'
There was raucous laughter: the build- ing would have shaken, if it had not been constructed in Victorian times.
My last patient that day was a man accused (and guilty) of armed robbery. He suffered from migraine, a disorder one often associates with intelligence and sensitivity.
I asked him about his record, and he said it was so long that he would have difficulty in persuading the parole board that this time he meant to go straight. Mind you, he said, until he had pointed a sawn-off shotgun at the postmaster of a village post-office, he had never done anything violent — just 'minor stuff, like burglary, theft and stealing cars.
Well, I was a little sore on this point, and I asked him whether he had ever thought about the suffering his 'minor stuff inflicted upon people, including people like me. He was quite decent about it: he apologised, but said it was just a way of life. No ill was meant by it.
I described what had happened recent- ly to my car, how the door was beginning to rust where the would-be thieves had scratched the paint, how inconvenient it was for me to have it repaired, and how I wouldn't be able to get it done for a long time because I was so busy, etc.
`Maybe I shouldn't tell you this, doc- top,' said my patient, as if breaking a confidence, 'but if I was you, I'd get it done straight away. I'd have all your locks changed.'
`Why?' I asked.
`Because they took the lock to have a key made. If your car is more than three years old, you can get a key the same day. If it's less than three years old, you have to wait a few days before you can get one. They've taken your number and they're waiting till you park near there again.' He smiled. 'You see, I know about these things, doctor.'
The police didn't tell me this: I had to find out in prison. It's one of the perks of the job, I suppose.
Theodore Dalrymple
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