The Cocaine Diaries: A Venezuelan Prison Nightmare (36 page)

‘
Sí,
’ I said.

‘
No aprobas,
’ (‘You won’t pass’) he said, laughing. ‘
No español.
’ (‘No Spanish.’)

‘
Traductor, inglés perfecto
,’ (‘Translator, perfect English’) I said, pointing to the office behind with my thumb.

‘Ah,’ he said, smiling, ‘
bueno, gringo
.’

The interpreter stepped out after a prisoner sitting the exam came out. I was last in, at about 2 p.m. ‘Please, come in.’ Inside, another woman sat behind a desk. ‘You can sit there,’ said the translator, pointing at a chair in front of the table. I pulled it out and sat down. I needed a miracle to pass. With the interpreter on board, I might have it.

‘
Buenas tardes,
’ (‘Good afternoon’) said the lady, a slight woman in her 40s.

‘
Buenas tardes,
’ I replied nervously.

‘OK, we’ll just start with the questions,’ said the interpreter. ‘They’ll be simple stuff, your name, where you’re from, that kind of thing. I’ll translate them all.’

‘I’ll say as much as I can in Spanish,’ I said. I wanted to make it look good at least, show them I had a little bit of the language.

‘Oh, no problem,’ she said. ‘If you prefer.’

The examiner ran through the few questions I knew. ‘What is your first name?’, ‘What is your second name?’, ‘Are your parents alive?’ and so on. I answered them all in Spanish, while the woman scribbled into a notepad in front of her.

Then came the question I’d been waiting for. ‘Your crime, why did you do it?’

‘I’d been going through a bad time in my life,’ I said, starting the speech I’d rehearsed for weeks in my head. ‘I’d split up with my wife and I was very depressed.’ This was true, but it had happened about 15 years ago. ‘I needed to get away for a while,’ I went on, ‘so when I was asked to go to Venezuela I said why not.’

I then sold myself as the model prisoner. I was totally reformed, never did drugs and was remorseful about what I had done. And I was hoping my kids would come and visit me in Caracas if I got out on parole – but that I knew I couldn’t go back to Ireland for another five years. I ticked off all the boxes Guatemala had told me about.

I also explained I had a job organised as an electrician’s helper. It was actually with Viviana’s ex-husband, who was an electrical engineer. I also told her I would stay with Father Pat, an Irish priest who I had come to know through his visiting me in Los Teques.

‘Very good, Paul,’ said the interpreter. ‘And your relationship with your parents: would you say it is good?’

‘Yes, great,’ I said. ‘My old man ran the house with an iron fist when I was a kid, but there was lots of love.’

‘Good,’ said the interpreter, nodding, then speaking to the examiner. I was now braced for the art materials to come out. The examiner opened a drawer, handed me a sheet of paper and a crayon and spoke. ‘Now, Paul,’ said the interpreter, ‘we’d like you to draw a picture of your family. Nothing serious, just a simple picture. Of your house when you were a child, and you standing outside it with your parents.’ There it was: Guatemala was on the money.

‘Yes, OK,’ I said. I drew exactly what Guatemala had said in the classes. I put myself as a matchstick child next to two matchstick characters of my parents: my da smoking a pipe and my mother wearing an apron, and me in the middle in front of them. We were all standing outside a little three-bed house.

I looked up from the drawing when I finished it and noticed the examiner’s eyes staring intently at the picture and nodding her head. I handed it to her and she spoke to the interpreter.

‘Paul, very good,’ said the interpreter. ‘That’s all for now. We have finished the test and the examiner will be in touch with your lawyer regarding the examination.’

That was it. Two hours after it had begun it was all over.

‘Thank you,’ I said, and stood up.

I stepped into the passageway. The door closed. I breathed out a sigh of relief.

In the wing, I was grinning from ear to ear. I knew it had gone well. Vito ran up. ‘Paul, the exam – did you do it in English?’

‘Yeah, almost all of it.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ he said, grinning. ‘See, I told you Viviana was good.’

Now I just had to play the waiting game and see if I would pass. I didn’t have to wait long. A week later Vito came back with amazing news.

‘Paul, you passed, you passed. Viviana just told me.’

‘Really?’ I said.

‘You’re on your way home, Paul, the
examen
is good.’

‘Lovely jubbly,’ I said, rubbing my hands together.

But I didn’t want to get too excited. I’d seen too many gringos go down that road, like Billy, only to end up waiting for weeks, and even months, before they put their foot outside the jail door.

The days ticked on. Vito was in constant touch with Viviana. He came up to me one Thursday. ‘Paul, I think you are going on Monday,’ he said, beaming. I couldn’t believe it; I still wouldn’t accept it was true till it happened.

A week passed. Then another. Still no sign of the exam results. I was starting to lose my temper easily. I was getting ratty with the Venos. I’d always tolerated their stupidity. Now things like having to stand in the yard for hours in silence while the bosses hid their guns was driving me mad. I wanted to run up and slap one in the face. I knew if I did I’d get my legs broken by the bosses and I wouldn’t be running out of the jail in a hurry. Even with Vito I was getting short-tempered.

‘Paul, tomorrow, tomorrow you go free,’ he said again a week later.

‘Tell it to my ass,’ I shouted out at him. Quickly I apologised. ‘Sorry, Vito, it’s just this shit.’

‘Is OK, Paul, is the system.’ He knew how frustrated I was.

During the next few weeks, waiting to hear when I’d get out, I spent hours on my own all day just lying on my bed, becoming withdrawn. I didn’t want to talk to anyone.

Bruce had been out about a month and was texting me almost every day, which made it worse. ‘Paul, cold beers tonight in Caracas?’ He knew I was due to go free any day and we’d planned to meet up on my first night. He’d offered me a room for the night on the couch in the hotel room where he was staying.

‘Not tonight, Bruce,’ I wrote back. ‘Still waiting.’ Freedom was taunting me.

THE WEEKS PASSED AND I WAS STILL LOCKED UP. STILL NO NEWS OF MY parole release date. Every day was another let-down. The papers for my freedom were in front of the judge waiting to be signed. That was it. All it took was a judge to read my papers and scribble their name at the bottom. ‘
Mañana seguro.
’ (‘Tomorrow for sure.’) That was what still kept me behind bars.

On a visit day I walked out of the wing and went up to the canteen. It was about 10 a.m. and I knew it’d be quiet. I slept badly the night before, tossing and turning, wondering if I would ever get out. When? When? Would I ever see my family again? How would I live for five years on parole in Caracas? I hated Venezuela and just about everybody in it. I stretched out on one of the stone benches and quickly fell into a deep sleep.

Shortly after, I felt myself rocking from side to side like I was on a boat on choppy waters. I opened my eyes. There was a hand on my shoulder. I looked up. It was Vito. ‘Paul, you have the freedom. You go today.’

‘How do you know?’ I said, ready to snap at him.

‘In a few hours. The judge signed the papers.’

I stood up and shook his hand. ‘If it’s true, this is amazing.’

‘Yes, it’s true.’ Vito left and I sat alone on the bench, shifting back and forth. I couldn’t sit still. I decided to go back to the wing. I still wasn’t 100 per cent sure I was going. I needed confirmation.

Back in the wing Roberto walked up to me. ‘Paul, inside. Come.’ I followed him to the bed area. He had a bunk next to me. I leaned against the frame. ‘It is true, you are going. We were told by the people upstairs.’

‘That’s fantastic. Fantastic.’ I let my doubts slip away. It was happening. I wanted to scream for joy. But I wouldn’t let myself go till I had my foot outside the jail.

Roberto handed me an envelope. It was the remainder of the two million bolos I’d paid him for the Dutch passport, a scheme that came to nothing. He’d been paying me back in dribs and drabs. ‘Is the last of it, Paul. Sorry it did not happen.’

‘It’s OK, Roberto,’ I said.

At my bed I sorted my belongings. My cooking-oil drum and a few things: a pair of jeans and a few toiletries – soap and toothpaste. It was stuff I knew I’d need in a special halfway house, where I’d have to stay for at least a week, so I shoved them into a small bag. I had already slipped my computer out with Viviana a few weeks before. Prisoners often robbed you when they knew you were getting out. The laptop, the months of diaries and photos it contained, was too precious to me.

Roberto came back. I held my Dublin Irish football-team hat. He’d always liked it. I handed it to him. ‘The fishing hat, Paul – for me?’

‘Yes, all yours. Enjoy. Catch me a few sharks here.’ He laughed. We stood there and just looked at each other. The silence lingered. But there seemed to be an understanding passing between us. It had been a long journey for the two of us. We both dealt with being locked up here differently. I kept my head down. Roberto got into the circle of bosses. But we both sought the same thing: survival.

We embraced. ‘You take care, my friend.’

‘You too,’ I said.

I carried my few belongings out to the yard, where all my gringo mates were. I picked up my Irish rugby shirt and handed it to Dieter. He was always going on about Irish music and sport, and the craic, and always remarked on the shirt.

‘That’s for you,’ I said.

‘Super, Paul, super,’ he said, holding it up. ‘This means a lot to me.’ All the lads were there: Hanz, Eddy, Dieter, Vito. I stood there looking at them all. We’d been through the full gamut of Los Teques together – we’d faced death, dodged bullets and knife attacks, and even starved together. I detested Los Teques, and everything in it, but these people I would never forget. And now one of us was going free – me. Everyone enjoyed that moment. It made them realise they would actually get out some day too.

‘Keep the faith out there, buddy,’ said Eddy and we embraced.

Vito stepped in. ‘It’s great to see you going. Keep it good, no more holidays with drugs in suitcases.’

I laughed. ‘No more, all over.’

‘And don’t forget,’ he said. ‘I have a taxi coming for you with my Italian friend who lives close.’

I embraced all the lads and shook their hands. A big cheer went up. ‘Heyyyyyy.’

‘Lads, I’m outta here.’ And I turned and walked, step, by step, by step . . . Neither of the bosses, Gómez nor Carlos, were out in the hallway. Probably inside bagging coke. I walked up to the wing door. A lucero slid the bolt back. ‘
Adiós, gringo,
’ he said.

‘
Adiós,
’ I said.

* * *

A soldier stepped out of the shadows at the prison gate. He rattled his keys in a smaller door in the gate and pushed it out. Here we go, I thought. The moment of truth.

I stepped through. I was free.

There was a guy waiting outside. I knew it was probably Vito’s Italian friend. ‘
Amigo,
Vito,’ I said, pointing at my chest.

‘You want taxi?’ said the Italian. A jeep was parked across the road.

‘Yes, for me,’ I said.

‘OK, now you go. Come.’ I followed him. He pulled open the passenger door at the front. ‘You go here.’ The driver gestured me into the front seat. I could just make out his profile. There was little illumination from the streetlights.

‘Back,’ I said. ‘I’ll go there.’ I had business to take care of. I had about 1,000 euro in bolos in a condom up my rear end, which I needed to fish out. The door shut. I waved at the Italian guy through the window and he walked off to the driver’s door. Nice work, Vito, I thought. Man of his word with the taxi. The engine rumbled into life. The driver sped off down winding dark roads. His headlights were off. Probably didn’t work. I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t care. I reached down inside my trousers and felt the rubber and fished out my money. Then I looked out the back window at the prison where I’d spent the best part of my captivity of two years, two months and twenty-three days. I could only make out the walls and the watchtower. It got smaller and smaller and then faded to a shadowy blur.

* * *

It was over an hour’s drive to the upmarket district of Altamira in Caracas, where I was due to meet Bruce for dinner. The driver couldn’t find the address and drove around in circles. I looked out the window, staring at the life outside. Motorists pulling up in cars at a McDonald’s drive-through. Waiters in dickybows bringing pizza to diners in sidewalk cafes. All the simple things I hadn’t seen in so long.

‘Here, I’ll walk from here.’ I saw a building I recognised and knew the restaurant was close. This was the area where I’d spent my last day of freedom before I went to the airport, more than two years ago. It felt strange.

I paid the driver and walked into the restaurant. I saw Bruce down at the back sitting at a table. ‘All right, Bruce,’ I shouted down, waving.

‘You Irish bastard. You made it.’ He stood up and threw his arms around me. He introduced me to his girlfriend. She was in her 30s and nicely dressed in smart clothes. ‘What do you want?’ he said.

‘A freedom beer.’

I put a bottle of Polar Ice to my lips, took a sip and let it swish around my mouth. I ate a steak meal and devoured the succulent beef. After a few hours of more drinks and catching up I was bleary-eyed and tired. We walked back to Bruce’s hotel.

On the way we passed through the main plaza. I saw all the sights I’d seen when I’d stayed here over two years ago. The stone fountain at the centre where water gurgled. Courting couples canoodling. The whole thing gave me déjà vu. It was weird.

‘It’s just here, the hotel.’ Bruce snapped me out of my daydream.

‘Here. See that hotel beside it?’ I said, pointing to the hotel next to his. It was a four-storey building with white balconies. I couldn’t believe I was seeing it. Another experience of déjà vu. It was where Damo, the lad from the Dublin gang, gave me the suitcase with the cocaine. ‘That’s where I stayed before I got caught. Before I went to the airport.’ It was true, but it all seemed like a dream.