"Zoo City" - читать интересную книгу автора (Beukes Lauren)10.CALEB CARTER HM Barwon Prison Australia "I didn't have the Tapir when I got here. She came on the second night, after I was jumped by a couple of the 4161s from Melbourne. Lucky my mate Len was already inside, and knew their game. He gave me a shank when I arrived, and it ended up in the neck of this one guy, a tattooed fuckwit called Deke. "That night, at about the same time Deke was dying in a hospital in Geelong, the Tapir appeared outside my cell. I heard her scratching at the door of solitary confinement. Scared the hell out of me. The guards said she was still covered in jungle mud when they found her. "I mean, there's cameras everywhere. And this thing's from a different continent. How come no one saw her arrive? How did she get here? If she can walk through walls or fly or something, why can't she carry me out of here? "Anyway, I love her. They let me look after her good, take her on walks around the yard. She's a stupid-looking creature and she's dopey as shit, but when the guys here see her at my side, they remember what happened to Deke. They remember not to fuck with Carter." ZIA KHADIM Karachi Central Jail Pakistan "They keep our animals in cages in another part of the prison. We don't see them. When they want to torture us, they put them in the back of a car and drive away to Keti Bandar. The pain is unbearable, you scream, you vomit and you say anything. "My Cobra was with me when I was arrested. I was nine. The police saw me walking on the street with my Cobra round my neck, and they grabbed me. They said I robbed a house. I didn't do it, but they beat me until I said I did. "When they brought me here, they threw my Cobra into one room with all the other animals. The animals would bite each other and get infected and die. The Undertow would come every night for the prisoners. Too many people died. Now they keep the animals in cages, but they still don't let us see them, not unless we give a big bribe, a month's salary for a guard. I don't have that money. "I haven't seen my Cobra since I was arrested. I'm now fourteen years old." TYRONE JONES Corcoran USA "It's crazy in here. I know you can't tear a man from his animal. Ain't right. But some of these niggas got real wild animals, man. One guy's got a Cougar. You can't tell me that's right, letting a prisoner walk around with a Cougar. "There's an order to things, too. Don't matter what you did, you got a bad-ass animal in here, you're a bad-ass too. And it don't matter how many people you killed, you got a Chipmunk or a Squirrel, you're gonna be a bitch. Way it is. "Then there's me. I got a Butterfly. Keep it in a matchbox. I oughta be pissed off, man. You can guess what it's like being in here with a Butterfly. Except for the stuff it lets me do. "See, when I go to sleep every night, I wake up as someone else. For the time I'm asleep, I live the day of someone else on the other side of the world. Man, I've been kids in Africa and India, I was once this old Chinese woman. Mostly I'm poor, but sometimes I get lucky and I'm rich. "What I'm saying is, I can't hate the Butterfly. Butterfly breaks me out of here every night." Excerpt from |
||
|